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FALLS VILLAGE — The insurance premium increase for the Region One School District is likely to drop from an anticipated 8.23 percent rise to a more manageable 1.68 percent. This significant decrease will impact taxes in all six towns of the school district.
Region One School District Business Manager Sam Herrick reported on the ongoing negotiations at the regular monthly meeting of the Region One Board of Education on Monday, May 3.
Herrick gave a quick recap of the insurance picture, which has been front and center in education budgets in all the towns. He said that Anthem’s initial renewal offer called for a 14.91 percent increase — including a 35.2-percent increase in the high deductible plan.
As talks continued, Anthem came down to 8.23 percent overall (and 15.5 percent for the high deductible plan).
Enter Aetna, with a tentative across-the-board offer that includes an increase of 1.68 percent.
Herrick said the company is anxious to get into the public sector.
“We’ll be the first six towns for them,†he explained. “They want to make us their flagship. They have the incentive to make us happy customers.â€
There are still some details to be worked out, Herrick added, but “we are confident we’re getting equal coverage, or better [with Aetna], and the savings are significant.â€
Herrick said the Anthem and Aetna plans are virtually identical, but cautioned that there would inevitably be some difficulties in the transition.
But in terms of three criteria — providers, plan design and access to insurance — the Aetna offer is “substantially equivalent or better in aggregate.â€
Negotiations with the insurance companies were carried out largely by a consulting firm called KONA that was hired this year by the school board.
In terms of the high school budget, which was voted on at referendum Tuesday, May 4 (before The Lakeville Journal went to press; look for results online at tcextra.com), Herrick’s rough guess was that the switch would result in savings of about $100,000 to the district.
Some of that money would go to employees directly, in the form of a lower contribution. The remainder would be returned to the towns in April 2012.
Herrick said that Aetna’s proposal includes safeguards against unreasonable increases once the company has secured the Region One contract. “There are caps on what they can charge for things, other than claims. It’s pretty unheard-of.â€
Region One Board Chairman Judge Manning added, “They also told us their start-up costs are so high that they want to keep us†for several years.
The Region One contract is complicated, with 26 separate groups — including teachers, town employees, union and nonunion groups — within the buying group.
The board voted to ask the buying group to continue with negotiations with Aetna, with authority to make the change.
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Telecom Reg’s Best Kept On the Books
When Connecticut land-use commissions update their regulations, it seems like a no-brainer to jettison old telecommunications regulations adopted decades ago during a short-lived period when municipalities had authority to regulate second generation (2G) transmissions prior to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) being ordered by a state court in 2000 to regulate all cell tower infrastructure as “functionally equivalent” services.
It is far better to update those regs instead, especially for macro-towers given new technologies like small cells. Even though only ‘advisory’ to the CSC, the preferences of towns by law must be taken into consideration in CSC decision making. Detailed telecom regs – not just a general wish list -- are evidence that a town has put considerable thought into where they prefer such infrastructure be sited without prohibiting service that many – though not all – citizens want and that first responders rely on for public safety.
Such regs come in handy when egregious tower sites are proposed in sensitive areas, typically on private land. The regs are a town’s first line of defense, especially when cross referenced to plans of conservation and development, P&Z regulations, and wetlands setbacks. They identify how/where the town plans to intersect with the CSC process. They are also a roadmap for service providers regarding preferred sites and sometimes less neighborhood contention. In fact, to have no telecom regs can weaken a town’s rights to protect environmental, scenic, and historic assets, and serve up whole neighborhoods to unnecessary overlapping coverage and corporate overreach. Such regs are unique to every town and should not follow anyone else’s boiler plate, especially industry’s.
Connecticut is the only state that has a centralized siting entity for cell towers. The good news is that applicants must prove need for new tower sites in an evidentiary proceeding and any decisions have the weight of the state behind them. The bad news is that the CSC used to be far less industry-friendly and rote in their reviews, which now resemble a check list. There is an operative assumption at CSC that if an applicant wants a tower, they must need it, otherwise why spend significant money to run the approval gauntlet? This reflects a subtle shift over the years at CSC from sincere willingness to protect the environment toward minimal tweaking of bad applications with minor changes. The bottom line is that towns really cannot rely on the CSC to do all the work for them.
What CSC issues telecom providers is a “certificate of environmental compatibility” after an evidentiary proceeding (not unlike a court case) with intervenors, parties, expert witnesses, and the service provider’s technical pro’s sworn in and subject to cross examination. Service providers get to do the same with any opposition from intervenor/party participants – like towns and citizens -- and their experts. It’s an impressive process whose ultimate goal is the fine balancing between allowing adequate/reliable public services and protecting state ecology with minimal damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values. They unfortunately often fall short of their mandate – like approving cell towers with diesel generators over town aquifers -- evidenced by CSC only rejecting about five cell towers in the past 15-20 years.
The CSC was founded in 1972 and clarified its mission in the 1980’s to prevent the state from being carved up willy-nilly by gas pipelines, high tension corridors, and broadcast towers. With the sudden proliferation of cell towers beginning in late 1990’s, it became the most sued agency in Connecticut by both an arrogant upstart industry if applications were denied and by towns/citizens when bad sites were forced on them. CSC gradually formed a defensive posture that drives their decisions toward industry with deeper pockets and attorneys on retainer.
For citizens, nothing can wreck one’s day like the CSC. It behooves towns to protect what little toolkit they have, and understand the legal parameters of the CSC’s playing field. The CSC is not a “normal” government agency where municipal/citizen redress is based on logic and local support. Their process is largely immune to everything but specific kinds of evidence – like town regs with setbacks/fall zones, radio frequency transmission signal strengths, sensitive areas identified, and detailed wildlife inventory, among others.
There is a current cell tower fight involving two intervening towns -- Washington and Warren; both with good cell tower regs – over a tower site within 1200’ of a Montessori School, near Steep Rock’s nature preserves with comprehensive geology/wildlife databases that include endangered, threatened and special concern flora and fauna, on established federal/state migratory bird flyways, within throwing distance to a historic site capable of being listed on the Underground Railroad, and with an access road on a blind curve entering a state highway that will permanently damage wetlands, vernal pools, and core forests. There are well credentialed environmental experts, including Dr. Michael Klemens, former chair of Salisbury’s P&Z, as well as the former director of migratory bird management at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and an RF engineer testifying to alternative approaches, plus three attorneys representing intervenors. It is the most professional challenge I have seen at CSC since Falls Village successfully mounted one that protected Robbins Swamps several years ago.
The hearing is ongoing, with uncertain results. To see what it takes today to stop an inappropriate tower siting, see Docket #543 under “Pending Matters” at https://portal.ct.gov/csc before removing local cell tower regs – the lowest hanging fruit that any town can possess in case it’s needed.
B, Blake Levitt is the Communications Director at The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council. She writes about how technology affects biology.