Case Study
Creative Benefits Strategy Helps a School Stay Open
When rising healthcare costs threatened a
school’s future, a creative benefits strategy
helped stabilize the budget and protect staff.
Balancing limited budgets, increasing costs, and recruiting
A growing charter school serving hundreds of students was navigating the complex financial realities that many education organizations face. With limited budgets and increasing operating costs, leadership worked hard to balance financial sustainability with the need to attract and retain talented educators.
Like many schools, employee benefits represented one of the largest expenses in the organization’s budget. Ensuring those benefits remained competitive and affordable was critical to both staff retention and the school’s long-term viability.
The Challenge
The school was not actively looking to change its benefits strategy. Leadership’s focus was on serving students, supporting teachers, and managing a budget. What changed was the renewal.
As healthcare costs continued to rise, increases threatened to push the benefits program beyond what the school could sustainably afford.
Several realities made the situation more complicated:
- Benefits still needed to meet affordability requirements for employers over 50 employees
- Reducing coverage would make it harder to recruit and retain educators
- Budget constraints left little room to absorb large premium increases
- Staff expectations around benefits remained an important part of the school’s culture
Objectives
Stabilize healthcare costs without
reducing employee benefits
Avoid salary reductions that would
impact teachers and staff
Maintain compliance with affordability
requirements for employer-sponsored coverage
Create a benefits strategy that
provided flexibility for employees
Alongside their benefits program, they needed perspective, creativity, and a partner willing to rethink the traditional approach.
Our Approach
Kraus-Anderson Insurance worked closely with leadership to explore alternatives beyond traditional group health insurance. After evaluating several options, the team recommended implementing an Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement (ICHRA)—a strategy that allows employers to provide a defined contribution for employees to purchase their own individual health plans.
While ICHRA is commonly used by smaller employers, implementing it for a larger organization required careful planning, education, and coordination with leadership and the board. We guided the school through every step of the process, including strategy development, board-level discussions, and employee education.
By helping staff understand how the new structure worked and how they could select plans tailored to their needs, the transition became both practical and empowering for employees.
Outcomes
Healthcare spending reduced by nearly
half compared to previous projections
Staff avoided the planned salary reductions
Employees gained greater flexibility in
choosing their healthcare plans
Leadership gained long-term stability and
predictability in benefits costs
