Sand Springs studies self-insurance for employee health benefits with OSSBA assistance

Sand Springs Public Schools officials told the board May 5 they are studying whether to move some employee health benefits to a self-insurance model similar to one used by another district, with technical help from the Oklahoma State School Boards Association (OSSBA).

“It's a little bit daunting and scary, but they sent us a big email with a lot of attachments that we're gonna dig deep and see if it would behoove us to do it,” Miss Durkee, superintendent, told the board.

Nut graf: District leaders said the proposal could reduce employee premiums in some cases, particularly for employees who cover dependents or spouses, but they stressed the study is exploratory and that major districts typically run self-insured plans.

Officials said OSSBA and a consultant have offered to gather the district’s state-submitted Flexible Benefit Allowance (FBA) data to model potential savings; that data would not include detailed employee demographics, the superintendent said. The model would show how many employees the state covers, how many carry family coverage, and potential premium differences. Miss Durkee said the district will study the proposal over the summer and make no promises about adopting any change: “I'm not making any promises as of yet.”

District officials also noted that self-insurance typically requires scale and risk management capacity; Union (a larger district referenced in meeting comments) has historically self-insured. Leaders asked for staff to review the materials and report back; no board action was taken.

The district requested permission to allow OSSBA to access state FBA data for scenario modeling; staff said they must authorize the data collection. Officials said the work will continue over the summer and could involve further presentations to the board and stakeholders if the analysis shows promising savings.