Jun. 24—SPRING VALLEY, Minn. — When Angela Forland returned to her career in the classroom as a sixth-grade teacher at Kingsland Public Schools, she was excited about being able to provide health insurance for her family. That excitement was short-lived, however, once she realized the financial toll it would come with.

She's not alone. The impact of rising health insurance costs have forced some school districts to change carriers altogether — but even the alternatives can be pricey. And that's becoming an issue for the educators who rely on coverage.

"Either I get insurance or I get a paycheck," Forland said. "(It's) so costly, in fact, that some owe the district money at the end of the year."

Many area school districts were involved in an insurance co-op called the Public Employee Insurance Program, or PEIP.

Although that organization was supposed to shield members from large price swings do to its sheer size, many districts found the opposite to be true. In 2022, the organization recalculated its process for determining member costs, which caused large price increases for some of the contributing members.

Blooming Prairie Public Schools left PEIP in January after realizing its renewal rate was set to increase 50%. That increase would have been on top of a 9% increase the year before and a 12.7% increase during the district's first year in the program.

"When we first got into PEIP, we were excited about the fact that they were looking at really low increases in their premiums year to year," Blooming Prairie Superintendent Chris Staloch said. "If you look at the compound interest over a three-year span, we were at about an 80% increase."

The school districts of Pine Island, Zumbrota-Mazeppa, and Plainview-Elgin-Millville were confronted with the same renewal increase and left PEIP as well.

At a 21% increase, the renewal rate was lower for Southland Public Schools than for its counterparts, but the district withdrew from PEIP in January all the same.

John Bruns, a teacher at Blooming Prairie, said the change would have resulted in an $800 a month increase for employees on the family plan.

In Pine Island's case, PEIP's premiums for a single plan were $484 in January 2019. That cost rose to $620 in January 2022. If the district hadn't switched to a different carrier, that same plan would have risen to $930 in January 2023 — almost double what it had been just four years earlier.

Similarly, Pine Island's family plan would have gone from $1,348 in January 2019 to $2,623 four years later in 2023 if the district had stayed with PEIP — a difference of $1,275. Like the single plan, the cost of the family plan would have nearly doubled over four years if the district had not decided to leave PEIP earlier this year.

Some teachers have spouses through whom they're able to get health insurance. For some, though, there isn't necessarily another option other than through the school district.

It's not just a challenge for existing staff. Multiple sources say the issue of high insurance costs impacts their schools' recruitment efforts.

"When educators have the ability to apply to many different places and have the opportunity to go anywhere, the job often filled is the one with the best benefit package," Forland said.

Much larger than all of its neighboring counterparts, Rochester Public Schools operates a self-insured system. But for small districts, that isn't necessarily a viable option.

It's not as easy as simply switching to a new insurance cohort, either. When Blooming Prairie left PEIP, it settled on another plan with Blue Cross Blue Shield after shopping around.

While the district's new plan didn't bring the monumental 50% increase the school district would have had under PEIP, the switch still resulted in a cost increase of 14% over the previous year.

Pine Island sought out another provider as well. Although lower than the 50% increase under PEIP, the district's new plan brought an increase of 24% over the year before. Superintendent Tammy Champa said the school district approved a temporary solution and provided extra funding to help teachers weather the cost of health insurance.

Like Pine Island, Kasson-Mantorville was another district that

approved a memorandum of understanding

with its teachers to provide some relief from rising insurance premiums. The issue spanned multiple meetings and prompted more than one teacher to come forward to explain the impact the rising costs have had on their personal finances.

"We do see it as a crisis," Kasson-Mantorville School Board member Kate Ryan said during a meeting in March. "It's a national crisis."

Education Minnesota, the statewide teachers union, has been trying to bring attention to the issue of rising insurance costs.

For the moment, though, school districts and teachers are having to continue to find ways to deal with the situation in front of them.

"I don't see the system as it is right now to be sustainable," Bruns said. "You can lose staff over issues like this."