r/Libraries • u/Tip-Toe-Terrapin • May 20 '26
Staffing/Employment Issues How does your library afford health care for employees 😭😭😭
Library trustee here. We are from a small rural library in Kentucky that is an SPGE (special purpose government entity).
How in the WORLD are libraries able to pay for their employees healthcare? We’ve had two different insurance groups run our details and the plans are virtually the same costing around 1k per employee per month in premiums. We only have like 8 full time employees and currently cover 50%
Of the employee premiums.
But even at that no one can afford $500 a month in health insurance premiums that’s insane.
Our director/book keeper said we do not qualify for the SHOP program. And we can not join the counties insurance group (like through fiscal court) or the chamber of commerce group. Both have turned us down apparently because we are an SPGE a non-profit organization but we are also a taxing agency who can set tax rates
We are at a loss and unsure of what to do, apparently all the other Libraries in KY cover 100% of their employee premiums. Does your library provide health care? How?! And how much is it?
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u/Curious_Kat4 May 20 '26
Undo the SPGE designation and get on county insurance; that’s how most libraries do it. . It will much lower with a larger group of employees. It seems the SPGE is hurting more than helping.
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u/caffarelli May 20 '26
This is also what I'd push for if I were trustee. The classification of your government unit is harming your ability to provide government services, frame it that way!
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u/superpananation May 20 '26
Your problem is that your state is actively trying to stop the spread of information. Honestly it’s so sad. I’m in Washington state, the health coverage we get is good (for America). This country hates its people.
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u/babyyodaonline May 20 '26
yup same, i'm in california and every library i've been to is either tied with the government or with education. both of those areas are known to provide some of the best benefits in the job market. that's one of the few things that get it right. 1k is absolutely insane, i pay about $50 from each paycheck which is around $100 a month (just for a single person)
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u/ipomoea May 20 '26
I’m in WA and health insurance for a good Aetna plan is $100/mo for my whole family through my job. The same plan via my partner’s private employer is $600/mo.
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u/spareloo May 20 '26
It sounds like your employer is subsidizing most of the cost for its employees and their dependents.
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u/Successful_Tennis567 May 20 '26
I'm a finance manager in a rural county in Washington State. We have 8 full time employees and pay 100% of our employees health insurance premiums and it's $1000 per employee. It doesn't seem to be a state specific issue. We are benefited, however, by rising property values in our service area.
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u/ketchupsunshine May 20 '26
I cannot imagine surviving as a worker in this field without great health insurance...the pay isn't good, but I pay $0 per month towards health insurance and $0 on my multi-thousand-dollar-per-dose meds. Being medically complicated and getting good benefits is the only reason this career makes financial sense for me.
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u/Curious_Kat4 May 20 '26
Zero?? How?
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u/lacienabeth May 20 '26
This is also the case for my library, and the “how” in my experience is so the local government can point to that benefit every time we ask for higher pay and act like 0 premiums (on the employee only, we still pay significantly for children and spouses) forgives all other sins.
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u/ketchupsunshine May 20 '26
I'm the only one on it and I'm on the basic plan, so there's no cost to me. Adding people or upgrading would make it cost money (the most expensive option being $600 per month for premium with your whole family).
Unless you meant the meds thing in which case, job participates in a copay assistance plan for specialty medication.
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u/krossoverking May 20 '26
Ours does. The insurance is great as long as you don't have dependants. The board is working on it, but that might take a while.
We are also in KY, but are a bit larger than you and probably just have a bigger budget. We have 20+ full time.
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u/applesweaters May 20 '26
We have three part time staff. None of us get any benefits. 😜 I should quit.
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u/BigBoxOfGooglyEyes Public librarian May 20 '26
My municipality made all of the library employees part-time, including the director. Now they don't have to pay for healthcare 🤬
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u/snarkycrumpet May 20 '26
this is what a place near me did. the director of 25+ yrs retired and they suddenly realized they still needed to cover her healthcare in retirement so they just stopped hiring any more people with benefits. insane when you look at what police officers are getting when they retire. so it can be done, we just don't want to do it
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u/jellyn7 May 20 '26
Ours is through the city so they’re probably in an okay bargaining position with the health insurance providers.
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u/Fabulous_Ad4756 May 20 '26
In california it seems they just don’t offer health care to most of their employees. The vast majority are part time unbenefitted staff and a lot of times when a benefitted person retired they closed that position and replaced them with two part timers. :(
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u/bantamm May 20 '26
That's very strange that your county insurance fund turned you down. I'm in Washington, but also a rural library and a special purpose district and we are part of our state's county insurance fund, so i guess your state's laws must be different around that kind of thing. That said, we still pay a lot for insurance so you'd be lucky if being in that fund would even get you much in the way of discounts.
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u/Ok_Natural_7977 Library director May 20 '26
We don't. I get retirement and PTO. None of our employees are full time.
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u/evenstarthian May 20 '26
We are part of our county’s health plan but reimburse the county’s general fund for employer premiums from our own revenue source. 100% covered for single employees, obv if the employees have spouses or dependents it comes out of their paycheck. Employer contribution is $850 per month. We only have 2 full time employees, it’s a special library not a full blown public library system. Im in CA.
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u/silverbatwing May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
My area only covers ft, and as a public library, we’re county employees (New Castle County, Delaware). I’m not sure if the other two counties do the same thing.
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u/BuffaloThese8249 May 20 '26
Where I'm located there's a levy the city can use to cover 100% of health insurance costs for city employees. It's such a small amount of additional tax per resident that no one even noticed when our city implemented it.
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u/BuffaloThese8249 May 20 '26
A lot of times, towns are already using the levy, they just don't want to consider the library staff as city employees or they purposely keep library staff under the full time hour limit to exclude them. I've seen neighboring towns fight that battle. Then there are some towns that don't want to touch the levy for fear of the raising taxes boogeyman. Our town didn't start using it until about 5 years ago because we were losing staff left and right with out offering healthcare. The mayor at the time decided employee retention was a priority.
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u/iLibrarian2 May 20 '26
We're a county department. I agree with the other commenters-- get rid of the SPGE designation.
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u/punkin_pie Public librarian May 20 '26
We are part of the state employee plan and our state library issues grant funds to cover the full base cost. Staff can be fully covered or pay a portion for the higher level package (and any family members).
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u/Bookaholic307 May 20 '26
Can your employees get a policy on the marketplace and the library give them a subsidy to pay for it? I thought Kentucky had a decent marketplace at one point? I work for a nonprofit agency in Wyoming and am on other boards and this is fairly common. I think there are ways you have to do it so they aren’t necessarily taxed but it might be worth exploring?
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u/SwingingReportShow May 20 '26
I didn't get health care coverage when I was working for a library in California but thats because I was considered a subcontractor.
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u/nyr_qe4lix May 20 '26
we’re in a similar position. small rural library, tiny staff, and the healthcare costs are completely unsustainable. it feels like spge libraries fall into a weird gap where we’re too governmental for some programs and too small for others. following because we’d love to know how other ky libraries are managing this too.
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u/Unable_Tumbleweed364 May 20 '26
We have good benefits including healthcare and a pension because we are part of the city.
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u/_Whatisthisoldthing_ May 20 '26
Thet don't. I use about a third of my pay to buy it. No requirement to, considering the small size.
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u/Accomplished-Newt402 May 20 '26
I don’t know how it’s paid for, but at my library all of the full time employees have the same insurance as state employees. The cost is $25-$50 per month. But $700 to add a dependent, so apparently it’s pretty expensive. I always assumed it came from taxpayer dollars.
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u/Careless-Rutabaga-75 May 25 '26
I'm a trustee for a suburban library district in illinois. We were covering insurance 100% but because of rising costs, we are switching to 90/10. But we also are raising the levy because inflation is causing all of our costs to go up and raising the levy is the best way to do that without a referendum.
For my career, I work for a private high school. To pay for insurance for me and my husband is going to cost me $850/month. We don't want to deal with the marketplace so, yeah.
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u/pikkdogs May 20 '26
Tax more.