CMS State Employee Health Insurance Program
Joint Resolution submitted by Western and Eastern Illinois Universities

WHEREAS: the State of Illinois bears, and until recently has met, the responsibility for providing quality health care to all state employees; and

WHEREAS Illinois Governor Ryan mandated in FY 2002 that $45 million be cut from state university budgets to compensate for the funding shortfall in the CMS state employee health insurance program; and

WHEREAS the $45 million figure was chosen arbitrarily and is disproportionate to the ratio of participating university employees, to all state employees participating in the plan; and

WHEREAS this unjust and unsound practice of shifting the cost of increased insurance from the state to the public universities was repeated in the final FY 2003 state budget; and

WHEREAS this cost-shifting compounds the decrease in state funding to the public universities and therefore, in a time of financial difficulty, places an undue burden on the public universities and their students and employees; and

WHEREAS the Department of Central Management Services has not been forthcoming in detailing the reason as to why public universities were charged this amount and the extent to which other state agencies have been charged employee health insurance costs; and

WHEREAS continuing any such cost-shifting in future budget years could permanently prevent the public universities of Illinois from fulfilling the IBHE Retaining Critical Faculty and Staff Initiative and from competing successfully with peer institutions in other states;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED; UPI take all necessary steps, including but not limited to introducing legislation and/or resolutions, representing our position to the governor and assembly members, and conducting grassroots lobbying and information campaigns, to cease and reverse the aforementioned cost-shifting and to ensure the restoration of crucial resources unjustly taken from the public universities and their employees;

AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED; UPI take all necessary steps, including but not limited to, introducing legislation and/or resolutions, representing our position to the governor and assembly members, and conducting grassroots lobbying and information campaigns, to ensure that UPI and its constituents have representation, directly and equally with other interested groups, with CMS and in all future negotiations of health-care benefits for state employees in Illinois.

REFERRED TO THE EXECUTIVE BOARD FOR WORDING ON THE SECOND RESOLVE ONLY Oct. 19, 2002