School districts that use the Michigan Education Special Services Association to provide health insurance to their employees will automatically fail to meet one of the criteria to receive an extra $100 per pupil and so will have to fulfill the remaining four requirements to qualify.
The conference report adopted Tuesday by a House-Senate conference committee for the K-12 budget (SB 183<http://www.gongwer.com/index.cfm?link=legislation_billdetail.cfm&code=SB%20183&billid=2011SB18301&locid=1>[image: Description: *]<http://www.gongwer.com/index.cfm?link=legislation_querymanager.cfm&locid=1&SR=1&Session=2011&BillType=SB&BillNum=183>) unveiled for the first time the five criteria in the $154 million pool of funds designed to reward school districts with another $100 per pupil if they meet four of the five requirements.
Under the bill, districts have to achieve four of the following to qualify: employees paying at least 10 percent of their health insurance premiums, the district acting as the policy-holder of health insurance policies, continue or implement consolidation plans, obtain a competitive bid on at least one noninstructional service worth more than $50,000 and make a public dashboard of performance in the district including items like graduation and dropout rates.
The second item, about the district acting as the policy-holder on health insurance, is the one that districts using MESSA, the health insurer founded by the Michigan Education Association, cannot meet. MESSA, long the target of Republican criticism, serves about 45 percent of the education health insurance market.
From, and more available (by subscription) at: http://www.gongwer.com/programming/index.cfm?locId=1