The OCPS health plan dispute: the numbers, the documents, a cost calculator.

What is happening

Orange County Public Schools pays its employees' health claims itself, through a self-insured fund called the Employee Benefits Trust, with Cigna administering the plan. OCPS · WFTV

• The district says the trust's costs have outgrown its revenue, that it would need at least $145 million more next year without changes, and that keeping current benefits during the dispute costs about $20 million a month. It proposed higher deductibles and dependent premiums and fewer plans for 2026-27. OCPS FAQs · CFPM
• The union (Orange County Classroom Teachers Association) says the district's proposal would raise some family deductibles as much as 650% and, with the pay offer, amount to an average 7% pay cut for teachers. It proposed smaller increases. WFTV
• The talks reached impasse in April 2026. A state special magistrate, James W. Mastriani, heard both sides and on October 16 recommended a middle path: smaller deductible increases than the district proposed, no "deductible first" rule, a 20% limit on dependent premium increases, and 2.5% to 3.5% performance raises. He wrote that the district's proposal would "create undue financial hardship." Magistrate report
• Both unions accepted the recommendations; the district rejected them, putting their total financial impact at $105.1 million. On October 21 the School Board voted unanimously to postpone its impasse hearing to November 13 after union lawyers objected to the timing. CFPM · WFTV
• Under Florida law the School Board makes the final decision after the magistrate step. WFTV

The numbers

Each figure below says who it comes from. District figures are the district's own; union figures are the union's own; the magistrate's are from his report.

What each side proposed for 2026-27

As set out in the special magistrate's report of October 16, 2026, with later reporting where noted. "Hybrid" means the current Plan C (OAPIN) and the district's proposed OA Plus plan, which would replace Plans A, B and C.

The district's SureFit family premium changed between reports: WFTV published $588 a paycheck in September from figures it obtained; at the November 13 hearing the district presented a $1,056 a year increase for SureFit coverage with dependents, as WKMG reported. The district has also said it added a deductible reimbursement of up to $1,000 per eligible employee (Apopka Chief, from a district release); the eligibility rules were not in the sources we read.

The district's projection for the health trust, with no plan changes

District exhibit 15, as reproduced in the magistrate's report, p. 29 (report). This is the district's projection, not an audited result. Yearly gap: $86.7M (FY27), $115.7M, $143.5M, $173.3M (FY30).

The hospital network report WFTV reported on

WFTV reported on November 10, 2026 that a draft hospital network study for the district by C F Larimer Consulting, dated May 23, 2025, found AdventHealth accounted for 85.1% of SureFit inpatient admissions in 2023 and 88.6% in 2024, and that AdventHealth inpatient costs ran 347.9% of a Medicare benchmark in 2023 against 265% for Orlando Regional. WFTV notes the study covers inpatient care only, not total plan cost. The district told WFTV it negotiated a better narrow-network arrangement with AdventHealth after the report. WFTV, Nov 10, 2026

The district says it does not buy stop-loss coverage; quotes in its November 2024 request for proposals were $5M to $15M a year with a $1M per-claimant deductible, and its average high-cost claim was $190K. OCPS Health Plan FAQs

What would each proposal cost me?

Pick your plan and who is covered, then how much care your household might use in a year. We show the yearly cost under the current plan and each proposal: premiums plus what you would pay toward the bills. Every input links to where it comes from. Where a number has not been published, we say "not published" and do not guess.

How we calculate

• Yearly cost = yearly premium + your share of the bills.
• Your share = the deductible first (or the whole bill if it is smaller), then the coinsurance percent of the rest, never more than the out-of-pocket maximum: min(OOP max, min(bill, deductible) + coinsurance x (bill - deductible)).
• Employee only uses the individual deductible and maximum; any other coverage uses the family amounts against the household's total.
• Where coinsurance or the out-of-pocket maximum is not published, we can only count the deductible, so the result reads "at least".
• Where the premium is a published ceiling (the magistrate's 20% cap), the result reads "up to".
• Per-paycheck premiums are turned into yearly ones by multiplying by 20, the ratio in the district's own premium table (report p. 30).
• Not counted: copays, prescriptions (they have a separate maximum), the district's $1,000 deductible reimbursement, and out-of-network care. Under "deductible first" (district proposal) copays would also wait for the deductible, so office visits would cost more early in the year than shown.
• The premium table in the magistrate's report lists "Employee + Spouse" and "Employee + Child(ren)" in opposite order in its two halves. The amounts differ by the same $586 to $587 in every row, so one half's labels are swapped; we follow the "hired on or after July 1, 2024" half, which matches the Orlando Sentinel's report that one district plan would cost a spouse $675 a paycheck (Sentinel).

Read the documents yourself

Primary documents first, then news coverage. Every number on this page comes from one of these. Our full research log, with each figure, its date, who said it and where, is public: facts.md.

How to get the contracts

Contracts and reports held by a Florida school district are public records. Under section 119.07(1)(a), Florida Statutes, the custodian must let records be "inspected and copied by any person desiring to do so." Fla. Stat. 119.07 (2026). If any part is withheld, the custodian must state the exemption and its statutory citation, and in writing on request. Copies cost up to 15 cents a one-sided page where no other fee is set, and a reasonable special service charge can apply to large requests.

Some contract terms, such as negotiated hospital prices, may be claimed as trade secrets. A trade secret held by an agency is "confidential and exempt" under section 119.0715 Fla. Stat. 119.0715, an exemption the Legislature kept in 2026 ch. 2026-52. In June the union said it was asking for an unredacted copy of the district's Cigna contract (WKMG), so expect redactions; the rest of a record must still be released.

Send requests to OCPS Records and Forms Management: [email protected], 407-317-3965, or the online form linked from the OCPS records page. You do not have to give a reason. The district already posts some records it released to the union on its CTA public records page; check there first.

A request letter you can copy

Edit the bracketed lines, then send it by email. It asks for the administrator contract, hospital and network agreements, the consultant's contract and reports, stop-loss, the trust's financial reports, plan designs and enrollment.