How a broker and school district enriched benefits without an enriched budget

No one understands having do to more with less better than cash-strapped school districts. With hundreds of staff and teachers to retain, how does a school district function when faced with mounting budget pressures, including escalating insurance premiums of 10 percent to 20 percent a year and a 0 percent state budget increase allocation? Despite these pressures, one school district in Wisconsin — and its broker — didn’t give up.

When an out-of-the box telehealth plan was presented to Daren Sievers, Superintendent Administrator for Slinger School District in Wisconsin, he and his team were hopeful. Their insurance broker, Stephanie Riesch-Knapp of R&R Insurance Group decided to focus on a solution that aimed to reduce claims. She knew that getting creative with plan design would help the district, but no one could have imagined to what extent. By engaging employees and promoting utilization of the benefit, Slinger School District ultimately was able to reverse everyone’s expectation that raises would be non-existent for the year without the necessary state funding.