Irvine : Day-Care Employees Can Join Health Plan

Full-time employees of nonprofit organizations that provide before- and after-school supervision for elementary school students can now qualify for the school district’s group health insurance plan.

The plan, approved last week by the Irvine Board of Education, will permit participating groups to enroll up to two full-time employees each in the group health plan. Although they will be covered under the policy, eligible private day-care workers’ premiums will be paid by the organizations employing them.

Under a joint powers agreement between the City of Irvine and the school district, the nonprofit groups lease portable buildings on Irvine campuses to provide day care for youngsters whose parents work.

School Board President Gordon Getchel opposed the plan and cast the only dissenting vote. Getchel said that because the district’s insurance premiums are tied to the previous year’s claims by participants, adding the day-care workers to the plan added to the risk of a rate hike next year. “Consequently, every person who is in that pool is a person who could have a catastrophic accident or illness and that could drive our premiums up,” he said. “We really didn’t need to take on those additional risks.”

Currently, only four people would be brought under the district’s insurance umbrella, but as the number of groups providing child care under the joint powers agreement expands, the number of new enrollees could balloon to as many as 60 people, Getchel said. A better solution, he said, would be for the city itself to add the workers to its policy.