CAMARILLO : Teachers Protest Health Cost Increase

Camarillo teachers turned out in force at a Pleasant Valley Elementary School District board meeting Thursday to protest an increase in employees’ health insurance costs that was not negotiated with the union.

Beginning with the Feb. 29 paycheck, the district will deduct $35 a month from each employee until the end of June to make up $90,000 in unanticipated health insurance costs, said Roger Lininger, Pleasant Valley Education Assn. president.

The average employee now pays $80 a month for health insurance.

District officials were not available for comment.

Lininger said a health committee of employees was notified of the increase last month but was asked not to tell other employees about it.

“The district had asked us not to say anything to the PVEA members because they said they were going to try and find the money,” Lininger said.

But when 523 district employees found notices in their mailboxes Wednesday, a wave of shock ran through the district’s 13 schools, teachers said in interviews.

“They’re trying to stick us with a $90,000 bill that they should pay because it was their error,” teacher Suzann Zeigler said.

Zeigler and Lininger were part of a crowd of protesters who went to the meeting Thursday but were told they could not speak until the end of the meeting.

Most had left by the time the meeting had ended.