School Consortia in Ohio

1
School Consortia in Ohio
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State of Ohio School Consortia

• Council of Governments (Chapter 167) v. Section
  9.833 v. Co-ops
• Council of Government organizations pre-date
  9.833 and comprise about 1/3 of the entities,
• Section 9.833 enacted later, allowing school
  districts to pool risks, comprising about 2/3 of
  the entities,
• Co-ops may or may not share risks, but purchase
  services cooperatively,
• The structural organization of the entities does
  not seem to dictate bylaws.

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State of Ohio School Consortia

• About half of the consortia were formed in the
  mid to late 80s
• About 1/3 were formed in the mid 90s
• The remainder were formed more recently
• Continue to be formed
• There are currently underway at least 3 efforts
  to form new consortia

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State of Ohio School Consortia

• There are 30 to 35 independent consortia now
  operating in Ohio that include schools
• Cover over 70,000 employees
• Include more than half of all school districts in
  Ohio
• Range in size from 120 to 12,000 employees
• The majority are organized around ESCs with
  school districts from one or two counties, but at
  least three extend well beyond county lines

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State of Ohio School Consortia

• The four largest consortia cover approximately
  15 of school employees in Ohio with about 30 of
  school districts represented

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State of Ohio School Consortia

• A few of the consortia include non public
  schools, such as
• Municipalities
• County governments
• Community Colleges, etc.
• Most consortia include ESCs, and some, but not
  all, include
• MRDDs, and
• Vocational Schools

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State of Ohio School Consortia

• There are a few non school consortia in Ohio
• One exclusively for County governments
• Several for City governments
• Some of the consortia are better characterized as
  purchasing cooperatives, obtaining insurance
  contracts for participating members
• Most consortia are partially self insured

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State of Ohio School Consortia

• Two general organizational practices characterize
  the consortia
• Common reserving - majority
• Allocated reserving
• Plan design philosophies split about evenly
• Common plan design (no more than 2 plans)
• Flexible plan design
• Complete flexibility
• 3 or more offerings

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State of Ohio School Consortia

• Rating process
• Uniform rates for all members
• Uniform rate adjustments for all members
• Experience rated plans
• Reserve recovery philosophies
• Withdrawal provisions
• Single pool consortiums, with some exceptions, do
  not pay run out claims
• Allocated balance consortiums pay run out claims

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State of Ohio School Consortia

• Termination notification requirements
• Vary from 30 days to 5 years
• Consortia, generally, do not pay run out claims
  for departing members
• No claim reporting information provided to
  members

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State of Ohio School Consortia

• Reserve positions
• Total estimated reserves in excess of 150
  million
• Stop Loss deductible variations
• 30,000 to 350,000
• Actuarial reporting required
• No filing of the reports

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State of Ohio School Consortia

• No repository for information about consortiums
• Most have outside managers