The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Board of Education has voted to cut employer-funded dental insurance amid its ongoing financial crisis.
The district had been providing free dental coverage to active employees and some retirees, but officials say that’s not common in other school systems. Cutting it will save more than $3 million over the next two years.
During public comment at the most recent Board meeting, Forsyth County Association of Educators President Jenny Easter said that’s not enough money to justify the cut.
“We're already in debt, up to our eyeballs, with no plan to pay it back," Easter said. "So why take away dental insurance? One of the only things left that actually matters to some of our employees left and their livelihoods just to chip away at a mountain we can't even move."
Another speaker said the loss of free dental coverage would cause major financial strain for retirees who had been relying on it.
But to save the same amount of money, district officials said they’d need to cut roughly 33 positions. Board member Leah Crowley called it a trade off.
"It's got to go one way or the other. So it's either lose positions or lose employer-funded dental insurance," she said.
Ultimately, the board voted 7-2 to approve ending the benefit.
Also at the meeting, Interim Superintendent Catty Moore said that after major job cuts and reassignments, multiple employees have resigned.
That's especially true for Exceptional Children Teacher Assistants, she said. That department was among the hardest hit by the last reduction in force, or RIF.
“We have EC TAs that have been reassigned that have shown up to schools and have decided ‘I don't want to do this anymore,'" Moore said. "And so we are now at the point where we have vacancies and we will need to call back off of the RIF list folks back into those positions based on how our policy is written.”
She said this was a "prime example of how difficult this has been for folks to navigate."
In addition to those vacancies, the district will be looking to fill positions at high-need schools, career and technical education roles and data managers. All other school-based hiring remains frozen.