Ohio University faculty could see healthcare premiums reduced after President Roderick McDavis acknowledged that current costs violate the Faculty Handbook.
According to the handbook, faculty contributions toward the entire cost of healthcare cannot exceed 10 percent and Faculty Senate must approve any rate increase. In July 2007, premium rates were raised without the senate's consent.
The president apologized to the senate at its meeting Monday and said he was unaware of the policy when healthcare rates were raised.
As a new president in 2004
I did not know what the procedure was for increases McDavis said. I certainly want to accept responsibility for that; as the president it is on my watch.
Faculty members are charged for healthcare based on their salaries, with those making a higher salary paying a higher premium. OU increased the total cost of healthcare premiums by $955,000 in 2007, which translated into a 1.59 percent rate increase.
This year, the mean faculty contribution is 9.47 percent of the total healthcare cost, the most since OU started charging employees premiums out of their paychecks in 1998.
College of Arts and Sciences Sen. Ken Brown proposed a resolution requesting to roll back faculty healthcare costs to 7.88 percent, the level they were prior to the increase.
The question is
are we going to defend the handbook or not
Brown said. Allowing a violation to go is a dangerous precedent to set.
Brown also acknowledged that the senate was partly to blame for failing to notice the breach in protocol.
It was an error of the senate as well. No one on the senate remembered or noticed that the approval of the senate was required for this type of increase
Brown said.
The senate decided not to vote on the resolution until its next meeting on Feb. 9 in order to give McDavis adequate time to address the issue.
There are ongoing talks discussing how to handle illegitimate increases and avoiding them in the future, McDavis said.
We're not finished with the conversation
but we're started with the conversation
McDavis said. These talks will bring us back to a point where whatever proposals are on the table are brought to (the Faculty Senate).
wl372808@ohiou.edu
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