By Brian Trompeter
Employees and retirees of Fairfax County Public Schools got a Christmas present – or perhaps better put, a New Year’s Day present – their counterparts one locality to the east did not.
They got to keep their health-care insurer provider for the new year and beyond.
Fairfax County School Board members on Dec. 14 approved a consent agenda featuring multiple contracts ranging from a cooling-tower replacement and elevator modernization to generator maintenance and a lease extension for a financial-literacy program’s building.
By far the biggest item on the agenda was a health-maintenance organization (HMO) and Medicare Advantage plan agreement with Kaiser Permanente to provide health services to about 5,550 FCPS employees and retirees and their 4,921 dependents.
The school system’s current contract with Kaiser Permanente was set to expire Dec. 31. The new agreement over the next five calendar years will cost an estimated $400 million. The pact, which has five one-year renewal options, factors in 6-percent annual increases for 2025 through 2028 for active employees’ plans and 2-percent yearly hikes for retirees’ plans.
FCPS officials said Kaiser Permanente’s group/staff plan is the only one offered in the Washington, D.C., region that allows the school system’s employees and retirees to do “one-stop shopping” with primary-care doctors, specialists, pharmacies and testing facilities in one location.
Unlike other health-care-insurance models, however, which permit doctors and providers to contract with multiple health-insurance plans for payment of eligible claims, Kaiser’s physicians and services are accessible only through its plan.
Employees and some retirees of Arlington Public Schools also have Kaiser Permanente coverage, but under a set of circumstances that still remains somewhat murky, they will be losing them Dec. 31.
The Arlington school system put out a request for bids for a new health-care contract about a year ago. According to school officials, Kaiser did not respond, although the health-care giant later told the GazetteLeader that it wished to continue providing service to Arlington’s school system.
By then, however, it was too late. Arlington school leaders inked a deal with another insurance provider, but it took several months before those with Kaiser coverage were told they would be losing it at the end of the year.
The result was several months of chaos, and now an audit is being conducted for the Arlington School Board in an effort to determine what happened and why.
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Also from the Dec. 14 Fairfax County School Board meeting:
> The School Board approved a $499,460 contract to replace the cooling tower at Kilmer Middle School in the Dunn Loring area.
Protec Construction Inc. was the winning bidder for the project, which will be financed using federal stimulus cash. The company has performed successfully on other projects for the school system, officials said.
> School Board members awarded a $386,000 contract to TK Elevator Corp. to modernize McLean High School’s elevator systems. The company, which has performed well on other elevator-related projects for Fairfax County Public Schools, will upgrade the school’s two elevators and their related systems.
> The School Board approved an addendum to a sole-source contract with Carter Machinery Co. Inc. to do preventive maintenance for the backup electrical generator at the school system’s Gatehouse Administrative Center.
The School Board in August 2021 initially approved the contract with the company to perform general maintenance and repairs of the school system’s Caterpillar electrical generators. The contract will expire June 30, 2026.
The new contract addition for the Gatehouse facility will cost FCPS an estimated $6,190 more per year, bringing its total value to $487,668.
The generators provide backup power for all FCPS operations and directly support the school system’s life-safety-communication equipment, e-mail, educational systems, finance, payroll, online learning and telecommunications.
School officials chose the contractor because it is the only vendor certified to repair and maintain Caterpillar generators, which are proprietary products.
> School Board members on Dec. 14 also approved a five-year lease extension with Junior Achievement of Greater Washington to continue providing financial-literacy education to all FCPS eighth-graders via field trips to a building called Finance Park.
In addition to offering a financial-education curriculum, the program also simulates the experience of adult financial responsibilities, school officials said. The School Board contracted with Junior Achievement in 2008 to build Finance Park on FCPS property next to Frost Middle School.
The contract for the program will cost $460,000 per year, or $2.3 million over its five-year initial term. The agreement also includes three five-year renewal options.
