On September 1, the Rancho Santiago Community College District (RSCCD) Board of Trustees voted to renew its employee health insurance contract with the Alliance of Schools for Cooperative Insurance Programs (ASCIP). Trustees David Crockett, John Hanna, Zeke Hernandez, Tina Arias Miller, and Daisy Tong supported the renewal. This decision came despite another vendor offering a comparable health plan at an approximate cost of $1.7 million less annually.
The less expensive alternative plan included substantially lower individual and family deductibles for both medical and pharmacy benefits. By comparison, the ASCIP plan's deductibles were up to 60 percent higher.
This contract renewal follows the District's failure to secure voter approval for a three-quarters-of-a-billion-dollar bond measure in 2024. The decision also occurs against a backdrop of past financial issues involving ASCIP. In 2024, Sara Cardine of the Times/OC reported that ASCIP had held millions of dollars belonging to the college district for years, funds which had not been disclosed to Board members or the District’s auditors. During Chancellor Martinez’s six-year tenure, approximately $8 million was held by ASCIP at one point until Trustee Phil Yarbrough requested the funds' return to the District.
The contract renewal was made on the recommendation of Chancellor Martinez, who was subsequently placed on leave pending an investigation shortly after the September 1 meeting, as reported by Voice of OC. The reason for the investigation has not been publicly disclosed. Faculty President Madeline Grant, in a statement to employee group representatives on August 25, affirmed that "The District's budget is in really good shape." At the September 1 meeting, Grant stated that faculty preferred to remain with ASCIP, citing a faculty member’s explanation that employees would lose certain coverage under the less expensive plan. However, the District’s insurance broker indicated that this characterization was not entirely accurate. Grant did not address the difference in deductibles between the two plans when presenting to the Board.
During discussions before the vote, Trustee Phil Yarbrough pressed for specific details to assess the justification for the additional expenditure. In contrast, Dr. Barry Resnick, a retired professor of counseling for RSCCD, noted that Trustee Daisy Tong appeared unaware that she was voting to approve the final annual rates, which Dr. Resnick stated raised a serious question about whether she fully understood the decision before her. Trustee John Hanna also observed that the additional cost of the ASCIP plan could have been used for salaries.
Dr. Resnick's commentary questions the rationale for approving the higher-cost ASCIP plan, particularly given the available, nearly identical, and less expensive alternative. He highlighted that while faculty expressed a preference, the ultimate accountability for independently evaluating the justification of such expenditures rests with the Board of Trustees.