Establishing an insurance committee is, in itself, a best practice for maintaining positive employee relations. By providing a forum for the voice of all stakeholders in the benefits program where all involved parties receive complete information at the same time, you can avoid a great deal of misunderstanding and conflict.

With everything that happens at the beginning of a new school year, finding time and resources to train new and returning employees can be challenging in those first few weeks. But complying with requirements to train your staff on their Mandated Reporter responsibilities and conducting other statutory training is a critical priority for all California schools.

Getting your new employees off to a great start begins with the time you spend on new hire orientation. While you have their undivided attention as they are signing up for their employee benefits, a successful onboarding experience should also include a review of important statutory responsibilities, district policies, and compliance training they will need to complete. When these requirements are handled at the very beginning of their employment, you have the best assurance that new employees are well informed from their first day on campus.

Mandated reporters under California AB 1432 must be trained on their responsibilities to report suspected child abuse within the first six weeks of hire. Employee orientation is an ideal time to get this legal requirement on their calendar. The Keenan SafeSchools online training portal provides a turnkey solution for meeting this requirement and allows you to track and document their completion.

Swimming pools and other aquatic facilities can be fun and healthful facilities for a campus and community. Making sure those who use them do so safely is essential to preventing tragedy and protecting your district from major liabilities. Managing the inherent hazards in and around pools along with diligent maintenance and staff training will help you to offer a safer and enjoyable warm weather activity.

Following the stunning $289 million jury award to a California school groundskeeper last year, the link between glyphosate-based herbicides (GBHs) and cancer has been widely debated. If your grounds staff uses these products (such as Monsanto’s Roundup), you may be concerned about the implications for your school district.

A great deal of controversy on the safety of GBHs stems from scientific disagreement on the chemical’s hazards. In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) found glyphosate to be a probable carcinogen. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that the substance poses no risk to humans from its current uses and that there is no evidence it causes cancer. In 2017, California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment added glyphosate to the Proposition 65 list as a chemical known to the state to cause cancer. Monsanto, the largest manufacturer, cites extensive research over the past 40 years of the herbicide’s safety and faults the conclusions of the WHO cancer agency study.

The warmer season we’re heading into brings a greater priority to preventing dehydration, heat illness and other hot weather hazards for student athletes. Critical to successfully protecting their health is making sure your physical education, coaching and training staff are prepared with an action plan for keeping participants safe and responding to any emergencies. More than one million high school sports injuries occur each year. Heat illness is the leading cause of preventable death in youth athletics.

Proper hydration is the best prevention for heat-related injury. Student athletes need to learn how to hydrate themselves before practices and games and to keep it up during physical activities. All staff and participants need to know the signs of dehydration and what to do before it turns into an emergency. Muscle cramping is often an early indication. Players who have stopped sweating or who become disoriented are already in a serious situation. Everyone involved needs to be aware of these signs and must be empowered to report to staff that a fellow athlete appears to be suffering a heat injury.

As more Americans enter their senior years, the prospects that our families will encounter the burdens and financial risks of long term care (LTC) become more likely. No matter where you are in your life, you may face the need to provide a grandparent, parent or other relative with additional assistance with their everyday activities. By the time we reach age 65, we all have about a 50-50 chance that we will need some form of LTC during our lifetime.

LTC differs from medical care because it involves basic, personal assistance with activities of daily living as opposed to treatment for health conditions. It is also different in that medical insurance, including Medicare, does not cover those personal care needs over a long period of time. Medicaid (known as Medi-Cal in California) does pay for substantial LTC expenses, but to qualify, your income must be below a certain level and you must meet minimum state eligibility requirements.

About 80 percent of custodial care is given at home by an unpaid caregiver, usually a family member, partner, friend or neighbor. An AARP survey showed that more than 43 million people in the U.S. had been an unpaid caregiver in the prior year. But at some point, many people will require help beyond the capacity of unpaid caregivers.

Seven minor adjustments to Medicare and Social Security regulations will combine to severely erode the affordability of health care for your current and future retirees. A typical retiree could experience lifetime benefit losses from $37,000 to $57,000 or more due to these “insignificant” changes. Unfortunately, these changes will not result in long-term reform to preserve the value and affordability of Medicare.

Many education agencies generously provide health insurance benefits for retirees. If a conventional retiree medical plan is not in your budget, a defined contribution Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) could be an affordable option.

Unlike a defined benefit plan and their rising costs, a defined contribution plan limits your district’s contribution toward that benefit. The contribution is not tied to rising insurance costs, makes cash flows more predictable, and reduces or eliminates devastating OPEB (Other Post-Employment Benefits) liabilities. The HRA provides a valuable retiree health benefit to employees. The employer regularly deposits funds into individual accounts on behalf of employees while employed at your school. HRA funds and earnings are free from federal income and FICA taxes.

Each year, tens of thousands of people in the US die from opioid overdose. This deadly epidemic has affected families and communities throughout the country. The impact of opioid abuse shows up in our schools through the devastation it can wreak on employees, students and their families. It’s also seen in your health insurance and workers’ compensation insurance costs. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the medical costs of opioids have increased from $300 million in 2004 to $2.6 billion in 2016.

California Workers’ Compensation Institute (CWCI) found that opioids are still the most common type of prescription drug used to treat California injured workers with lost-time injuries. Opioids were nearly a quarter of the indemnity claim prescriptions in 2017.

In the last year, lawmakers have tried to impact the opioid crisis at both the state and federal level. Congress enacted the “Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act” (SUPPORT Act), a bipartisan bill addressing the opioid crisis. California’s own group of new laws to combat the opioid crisis, implements the Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System (CURES) database for prescribers.

Your employees’ households include every variety of size and make up. From singles to single parents; families that are “nuclear” to “extended”; and even homes where furry companions are beloved members of the family – with this amazing diversity comes a wide range of insurance and financial security needs. Each family needs the ability to customize insurance to their own requirements and budget. Voluntary benefits offer your employees the opportunity to create a portfolio to meet their specific requirements.

What concerns could affect their situation?