Frey, also an associate professor of counseling and special education, said there are “no updates or changes” in the status of bargaining between the group and university administration.

Mediation between the parties ended July 14 after three sessions the FA contract expired June 30. The university has elected to not extend the faculty contract. Both parties petitioned for factfinding last week. The petition is available online.

Frey said it is still possible for the university and the FA to resume bargaining talks during the factfinding process, but thus far the administration has not expressed desire to do so.

State Rep. Kevin Cotter, R-Mount Pleasant, said he has monitored the negotiations because whatever happens will ultimately affect the district, but said he is not “taking a side” in either the administration or the faculty’s favor.

“In general terms the cuts that were handed down for higher education has had a big impact (on higher education budgets),” Cotter said. “We certainly know that makes things difficult as it affects all 15 schools.”

The FA had a general membership meeting on Thursday where it explained its positions to its membership who voiced their concerns over the situation.

“We received an update from members of the bargaining team and talked about some of the differences between the administration’s position and ours the issues of fact finding,” said Tim Connors, past FA president and communication and dramatic arts professor.

Health care

The FA is currently on a Michigan Education Special Services Association plan, underwritten by Blue Cross Blue Shield, Connors said. The rest of CMU’s employees are covered by a self-funded, separate Blue Cross Blue Shield plan.

A Grand Rapids insurance agent, who asked not to be named, said a self-funded plan likely is more cost efficient for a large employer like CMU.

Instead of paying a premium to an insurer like Blue Cross Blue Shield, who underwrites both CMU’s self-funded and MESSA policies, to assume risk, CMU assumes the risks itself with a self-funded plan.

“You can tell from year to year what the risk is going to be (with a self-funded plan),” the agent said. “If you look at claims and it’s going to be, say, $10 million in claims ever year, then why are we giving all this extra premium to Blue Cross? (Instead, the university pays the premiums themselves) which helps control and predict costs.”

With a self-funded plan, the university pays its own costs as they come in from employees.

Conversely, the university pays external premiums to MESSA on those plans, the agent said.

“MESSA is a very, very rich plan,” the agent said. “MESSA is always going to be bigger, better coverage.”

MESSA plans allow their insured to go out of network at lower cost, with smaller copays and less expensive prescription drugs for their members.

“Teachers in Michigan know they get the best insurance available in Michigan (with MESSA),” the agent said, but that insurance comes at high cost to employers. “MESSA is expensive, (but with) good benefits for teachers.”

Connors said the plan covering the other CMU employees concerns him after more than 20 years of MESSA coverage, partially because of differences in prescription coverage.

Under the MESSA plan, Connors said faculty don’t pay any more than $10 per prescription, but with the prescription plan under BCBS, prescription costs are on a percentage basis with a copay.

Connors said MESSA has treated FA members well, and losing its coverage is of serious concern to FA members, for both their health benefits and pocketbooks, Connor said.

“Leaving a system like MESSA, which has been excellent in terms of providing us with those coverages, provides us with a ... medical system in which a bureaucrat tells us what a kind of treatment we will and will not receive,” he said.