The ANW Cooperative board members received updates at Wednesday night’s board meeting on two looming financial issues.
One, the loss of federal funding due to the sequester and two, health insurance costs.
In 2014 everyone will be required to have health insurance because of the Affordable Healthcare Act. For businesses this will mean either insuring all employees or taking a penalty, which for the cooperative would be roughly $400,000.
Originally, ANW board members were planning on taking the penalty because the figure would come under what it would cost to provide health insurance to its para professionals.
ANW director Bob Coleman has been discussing options with Blue Cross Blue Shield, the co-op’s current insurance provider, and said he thought at this point including insurance for paras would cost roughly the same as the penalty.
Coleman said he is still doing some “soul searching and research” as to the best course of action regarding health insurance for employees.
With the recent budget cuts coming from the federal sequester, Coleman said ANW is looking at roughly a loss of $65,000 to $70,000 in funding for the 2014 budget.
ANW Co-op victim of federal cuts
