Students and employees will owe UCA more money in 2023; following unanimous approvals by the board of trustees on an added student fee and an increase in health insurance rates. 

In the board’s Oct. 7 meeting, a new student fee was introduced to cover Welcome Week activities. 

The “First Year Fee will be $100 for first-time undergraduate students and $50 for transfer students,” according to Board Policy No. 634. The fee is proposed to allow students to utilize financial aid for first-year activities that were previously paid for out of pocket, such as Student Orientation and Academic Registration. 

SOAR costs $50 for an overnight session or $25 for a one-day session without room and board. The fee will replace these registration fees, in addition to funding “an early arrival extended orientation experience, Welcome Week programs, the UCA Family Network, including Family Day Events, and First-year targeted programming such as Storm the Stripes, class T-shirts, programming within the first 40 days, and other first-year-specific events,” according to the policy.

SGA president Courtney Clawson supported the fee on behalf of the student body. 

“Every student that comes through a SOAR session over the summer has to pay this fee anyway or they have to pay out of pocket. By adding this fee, it would allow financial aid to cover these costs and prevent the financial burden that comes with families having to pay upfront.”

The fee passed unanimously. No first-year fee existed before this. 

In response to inflation and depleting insurance reserves, the Board approved a 9.9% increase in health insurance rates for the 2023 calendar year, an addition of $1,153,941 overall. 

Faculty senate president Kristin Dooley supported the agenda item.

“It’s difficult to support an agenda item that ultimately takes money out of the households of faculty and staff. However, I do reluctantly support it,” Dooley said. “What’s not seen is the work that went into freezing our rates last year, keeping the increase modest compared to private insurance increases and maintaining our current level of coverage.”

In addition to the employee’s increase in rates, the university will also increase their contribution. 

“I also appreciate that the university is sharing the burden of the increase by increasing the employer contribution as well. I feel it overall is a situation where the bad news could have been a lot worse. It’s hard to be excited about paying more, but I do feel like there has been a good-faith effort to minimize the effects it has on our employees’ lives,” Dooley said. 

UCA has been self-insured for seven years, and ebbs and flows with COVID-19 have affected the amount of money in reserves for paying claims. 

Chief of staff for the Office of the President, Amy Whitehead, briefed the board on the proposed increase.

“Our reserves have been impacted by claims over this last year,” Whitehead said. “That has inhibited our ability to be able to draw on some of those reserves to mitigate premium increases this year.”

The university had a reserve of $1.3 million in 2020, which led to no increase in rates for 2021. The university’s reserves are currently sitting at $283,641 and that’s “below what we’d like it to be,” Whitehead said. 

The increase in claims is COVID-19 preventive care catching up, Whitehead said. 

“We’re starting to see the impact of COVID now with some of that delayed, preventive care. People weren’t going to the doctor as much, that’s why our surplus was looking so good. Now, some of that delayed care is impacting the plan.” 

To mitigate the increase, employees can participate in the university’s BeWell program. 

Whitehead said 605 out of the 1,279 eligible employees participated in the program in 2021 and described it as a “cost management tool.”

Eligible employees can still participate to discount their 2023 rates. The deadline is Oct. 31.

“We’re continuing to educate candidates on what it really takes to get that discount. And the answer is not much,” Whitehead said. “You need to spend about 15-20 minutes at the doctor getting a free biometric screening … and then you take a survey, which takes about 10 minutes. So, you’re looking at about 30 minutes of your time to get a premium discount every single month next year.”

In other business, the board approved language updates to current board policies, a right of way and easement to the city of Conway for the construction of gas lines and a gas riser station near the practice football field on Faris Road, and three revisions to existing policies.

The revisions included the official introduction of no-cost parking for employees with 25 or more years at the university, a clarification on computer use for former employees and the removal of restricted hours for alumni at the HPER Center. 

Finally, Beta Alpha Psi, a financial studies honor organization, was recognized as the Bear CLAWS recipient. 

The board will meet next Dec. 2 at 10 a.m. in Wingo Hall.