The Columbus Education Association filed a union grievance related to Columbus City School's "preventable" bad deal with an insurance consultant that cost the district millions.
The teachers' union alleges that because of that deal, educators are now being asked to substantially alter their health care coverage for the next year.
In a statement, CEA President John Coneglio said that CCS "has presented educators with an unacceptable choice: pay dramatically higher premiums, accept reduced coverage, or some devastating combination of both."
"Rather than holding the multibillion-dollar corporation that created this crisis accountable, the district has decided that each and every one of their employees should foot the bill for this disaster,” Coneglio
said.
In a press release, the Columbus Education Association, the teachers union representing over 4,500 district educators and other faculty, said it filed a union grievance on Aug. 21 over the district's handling of its insurance benefits plan. The grievance, the release said, "seeks to protect educators from bearing the entire weight of the financial consequences of decisions and failures they did not create."
The Dispatch previously reported that an internal report found that the district could lose as much as $40 million dollars after deals an employee signed with health insurance consultancy firm Aon led to an underfunding of the district's self-insurance fund. Some members of the board said they were interested in recouping the money.
The union said in the release that "because of Aon’s predatory practices and a district administrator’s incompetence, CCS is now locked into multi-year contracts with Aon that have sent costs soaring." The release said that at on Aug. 10, the district informed the joint insurance committee that maintaining current coverage in the new plan beginning in January would require an unprecedented 21% increase in funding.
Columbus City Schools did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
At an Aug. 4 meeting, Coneglio and Lois Carson, president of the Columbus Schools Employees Association, said during public comment that the while the district became aware of this problem in late 2025, they had not informed the unions until March 2026.
"CEA members were kept in the dark for months about the unfolding scandal that led us to this point and denied the opportunity to engage in informed conversations about how to effectively solve these problems together,” Coneglio said in the Aug. 24 statement.
Through the grievance, the district administration will meet with the union, and if a solution cannot be found it will go to arbitration, Coneglio said,
"If they're serious about fixing it, we will work together on solving it," Coneglio said in an interview.
Bad deal with Aon cost district millions
The Dispatch reported on July 27 that CCS was considering firing a human resources administrator after it found she had improperly signed contracts and failed to maintain records regarding her dealings with Aon, a health insurance consultancy firm that helped the district navigate its employee health insurance benefits package in 2024.
An external forensic audit of the dealings with Aon found the district overspent as much as $40 million more than expected for the benefits plan produced by Aon during 2025 and 2026, and that Aon "generally treated the district as a taxpayer-funded cash cow."
Aon was paid over $300,00 in 2024 and 2025, in addition to commissions. It was expected to be paid $180,000 in 2026 for consulting services before the district ended the contract early. The benefits plan, according to the audit, forced the district to pay for cost overruns based on bad projections. Aon refused to give dollar amounts for any commissions they received, the audit said.
However, at an Aug. 4 meeting, Board President Antoinette Miranda said the cost overrun was detected by human resources personnel, and no money has come from the district's general fund in the past two years. She said to describe the underfunding "as a district failure is inaccurate."
While in 2025 the district lost $22.5 million to the underfunding problem, Miranda said that it was only underfunded by $1 million in the first six months of 2026, meaning the actual loss to the district has been $23.5 million and said it is not likely the cost will reach $40 million. The district, she said, will not have to pay out of the general fund to compensate for the cost overrun.
Cole Behrens covers K-12 education and school districts in central Ohio. Have a tip? Contact Cole at cbehrens@dispatch.com or connect with him on X at @Colebehr_report
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Schools teacher union files grievance over insurance 'disaster'
