Pinal Today

Maricopa Unified School District (MUSD) employees have green-lighted passage of an employee-benefit trust agreement that paves the way for district officials to work in accordance with the Phoenix law firm of Gust Rosenfeld in creating an initial draft for management of the district’s employee-benefit funds.

“Being self-funded, our rates are based only on claims within our district,” MUSD Chief Financial Officer Jacob Harmon told InMaricopa.com. “We only use our money, and it comes from no one else or no other district. If we had a really high-cost membership that were not as healthy, it would benefit us to join a pool and spread out those costs."

With the district’s benefit program being self-funded, state law stipulates it have a trust agreement. Self-funding means the district does not participate in an insurance pool and is only responsible for the claims of its own employees.

A committee to identify members of the Board of Trustees for the trust has also been approved by the board.

“If we are in a pool, our rates are dictated by the average annual rate of the pool,” Harmon said. “We decided to change to a self-funded model because we like the transparency and ability to look at all our categories of costs. When you are in a pool, there is less transparency because there are so many people in the pool. Also, in this model we can help target wellness efforts to the specific needs of our employees rather than to people all over the country.”

Harmon added the board has already authorized creation of a committee to identify members of the board of trustees for the trust, with the board likely being composed of five members that includes at least one MUSD employee.