At work we have been dealing with a bit of a dilemma with our insurance coverage. Many communities in Rhode Island have joined a collaborative to buy insurance for their municipal employees. This is actually a good thing. Prices tend to go down when you buy insurance in bulk. Unfortunately, my library is not a municipal library.

Like a majority of libraries in RI and in much of New England, the library has a long history and is actually a private library that provides services to the public. We get a majority of our funding from the community, but the municipalities figure we are doing a pretty good job so why put in the effort of creating a new department to replace us. You can sort of think of us as being subcontractors.

Anyway, this is where the dilemma came in. As a result of our status, there was a pretty big question as to whether the library could continue to purchase our insurance through the town since we are not municipal employees.

Since this is such a large problem (and not just for library employees, but non-municipal employees in other areas providing services to the communities), most of the towns jumped in to try to get the wording amended to allow it to take place. Well, with the economic difficulties that are hammering our state, the General Assembly has not been focusing on resolving this. I would have thought they would have acted quickly because it would be an easy vote. Everyone supports it: the insurance company, the municipalities, and the employees themselves.

Well, our director has been looking into our options if it wasn't resolved by the end of June so we would not see a break in coverage. It turns out the library (and us with our co-pays and the portion we have to pay) would actually have lower costs to get the same insurance. At least that is how it seems. As a result, our Board is likely to vote to approve our purchasing our insurance directly on Monday night.

I might be lucky to get another benefit. The town I work in doesn't provide coverage for the partners of gay and lesbian employees. They do not consider same-sex couples to be something they have to cover. When I asked the director if the library might, if it does provide the insurance on its own, he suggested that he thought it would be a possibility. So, this could prove to be a very good change for us since Ray has to pay $600 a month for insurance because he buys it as an individual.

I am really crossing my fingers this will happen.