Richmond Superintendent Jason Kamras has backed off of a proposal to split the costs of health insurance increases equally between the division and employees after backlash from unions and concerns from School Board members. 

“It is no longer part of the proposed budget,” he told the board at its Monday night work session. 

Anne Forrester, president of the Richmond Education Association, the teachers union, called the decision “the right thing to do” and said it would “continue to show potential employees that [Richmond Public Schools] is a district they should want to work in.” 

“It also acknowledges the real life struggle that working class people deal with to pay their bills and make ends meet,” she continued in an email. “We know this change to the budget is a testament of workers coming together and speaking out.” 

Kamras had proposed the cost split as a way to save roughly $4 million in the division’s 2025-26 budget, which is expected to be much tighter than it has in recent years. 

While Richmond Public Schools employees do pay toward monthly premiums, the division has for the past six years picked up the entire cost of any annual increases in health insurance costs. Calling the expense “not sustainable” going forward, the superintendent had proposed splitting increases 50-50. 

Two unions representing RPS employees publicly criticized the idea, saying it would essentially act as a pay cut and would counteract major investments in salary increases that have occurred in recent years. 

The administration estimated that insurance costs could rise from $66 to $90 for employee-only plans, from $309 to $419 for plans covering an employee and their spouse and from $460 to $588 for plans covering a whole family each paycheck.  

Those complaints got some traction among School Board members and led to 3rd District representative Ali Faruk suggesting $5 million in cuts to Kamras’ original budget proposal as an alternative to the health insurance split.