EPSB employees urged to carefully choose coverage

The Evangeline Parish School Board learned about upcoming open enrollment for hospitalization insurance during its meeting Wednesday, September 17.
Superintendent Toni Hamlin said the school board office and a number of school board members are getting phone calls from active employees and retirees about the upcoming open enrollment, which will begin October 1, and continue through the remainder of October. Hamlin said all employees, active and retired, who are part of the Office of Group Benefits will need to select coverage. Both Hamlin and Chief Financial Officer Amy Lafleur are pointing employees to the Office of Group Benefit’s website at www.annualenrollment.groupbenefits.org.
Hamlin and Lafleur stated during the meeting that there seems to be some confusion about which plans are the most similar to what employees currently have. However, they stated that coverage in many of these plans have changed, drastically in some cases, and employees need to carefully consider the coverage of each plan before selecting one in the open enrollment period.
While Lafleur said that she cannot tell employees or retirees which plan to select, she did want to help make them aware of what each plan offers. She also added that she is afraid some employees will gravitate toward the “Pelican” plan, which has a low premium, but offers minimal coverage. She said the “Pelican” plan is the type of plan in which an employee puts money into a fund each month and draws from that fund when the need arises. Unfortunately, she said the fund grows very slowly and a single hospital visit could be devastating for those on that plan since the vast majority of the costs would not be covered.
Both Hamlin and Lafleur asked that employees carefully review the plans available to them and weigh the cost versus coverage in great detail before making their final decision on which coverage plan to take.
In other business, the board approved spending $25,590 for 30 new computers for the computer lab at Ville Platte Elementary. This was paid for with parishwide maintenance funds.