Carroll County’s public school system spent $5.6 million more than anticipated on employee medical insurance last fiscal year, which was counterbalanced by less-than-budgeted spending on teacher salaries due to a staffing shortage.
Superintendent Cynthia McCabe said last month that cost-saving solutions would be considered to reduce the amount spent on employee health benefits in the future.
“We have been monitoring this situation throughout this fiscal year, given last year’s history, and are carefully considering cost-saving solutions to be discussed during the FY 26 budget development and next year’s budget process,” McCabe said. “It is complex, from a multitude of underlying factors and a range of potential cost-saving strategies that all need to be carefully considered and analyzed for their potential savings, but also in terms of other potential consequences for our organization. I will be receiving feedback from our folks and our actuaries. That will be a focus in our budget work sessions this fall.”
Fiscal 2025 began July 1.
McCabe said medical insurance claims exceeded the budget for a second consecutive year, due in part to inflation, high levels of employee turnover, and a pandemic-related increase in medical claims.
“We’ve had two years of our highest claims preceded by some of our lowest-claims years,” McCabe said. “The past two years of claims history appear to be impacted by employees who deferred procedures during the pandemic or who chose to have procedures completed in the year of their retirement year.”
The school system budgeted about $62 million for insurance premiums for employees’ health, life and worker’s compensation insurance, unemployment insurance benefits, and medical insurance for retirees in fiscal years 2024 and 2025, according to budget documents. Board of Education member Steve Whisler said he is concerned that the amount budgeted will be insufficient.
Several employees nearly reached the stop-loss point in fiscal 2024, which Assistant Superintendent of Operations Jon O’Neal said happens rarely. In insurance, stop-loss is the maximum amount for which an individual employee is covered.
“Some of it is, I think, anomalous,” O’Neal said. “I don’t remember us ever having employees get to stop-loss.”
The school system also spent more than anticipated on building improvements, maintenance, replacement vehicles, hourly student support assistants, special education, and human resources. The system spent $4.7 million less than anticipated on teacher salaries, $2.2 million less than anticipated on school bus contractors, and realized savings on salaries for custodians, substitute teachers, administrators, and student health staff.
According to school system documents, $8.1 million in overages were offset by $8.1 million in unbudgeted savings.
“While it is always good for us in some way to have savings particularly to offset overages in other areas, this doesn’t reflect good news in general,” McCabe said. “It reflects our ongoing challenges in consistently staffing almost all position categories. The same is true for the savings in the transportation category of our budget, that savings reflect all of the days that buses didn’t run due to the driver shortage. So as budget savings, this is great, but as an ongoing challenge or successful operations, it’s not very great.”
Carroll County Public Schools is making a concerted effort to hire more, and better-qualified teachers, according to a plan detailing the county’s implementation of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, a statewide multibillion-dollar education reform package.
