FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Columbus, OH – August 24, 2026 – On behalf of the 4,500 members of the Columbus Education Association (CEA) who are facing devasting health insurance premium increases in the wake of the Columbus City Schools (CCS)/Aon health insurance crisis, CEA filed a grievance on Friday. The grievance seeks to protect educators from bearing the entire weight of the financial consequences of decisions and failures they did not create. A copy of CEA’s grievance is attached to this message.
“Rather than holding the multibillion-dollar corporation that created this crisis accountable, the district has decided that each and every one of their employees should foot the bill for this disaster,” said CEA President John Coneglio. “CCS has presented educators with an unacceptable choice: pay dramatically higher premiums, accept reduced coverage, or some devastating combination of both. These increased costs would create financial hardship for many educators and their families, distracting attention and resources from what matters most, meeting our students’ needs and ensuring they are all set up for success in this new school year,” Coneglio said. “In the face of that choice, there is only one possible answer from our union to the district: No.”
Because of Aon’s predatory practices and a district administrator’s incompetence, CCS is now locked into multi-year contracts with Aon that have sent costs soaring. According to the district’s own report and investigation, in 2024, Aon “…neglected their own duties per their contracts with the district, and generally treated the district as a taxpayer-funded cash cow…” That same report found the high-level CCS district administrator directly responsible for overseeing Aon’s contracts failed to review contracts with Aon, failed to retain records, and possibly signed contracts she did not have the authority to sign.
CCS hired an independent forensic auditor who flagged these issues but did not inform CEA members on the Joint Insurance Committee until several months later. CEA believes this lack of transparency denied employee representatives the opportunity to fully understand the problem and participate meaningfully in discussions about potential solutions. As a result of this failure to provide critical and accurate information, the Joint Insurance Committee was making plan decisions based on data provided by Aon that was overoptimistic and outright false.
On August 10, the district informed the Joint Insurance Committee that maintaining current coverage in the new plan year, beginning in January, would require an unprecedented 21% increase in funding. The district then gave CEA two weeks to make the impossible choice of outrageously raising costs for members, massively degrading the quality of their coverage, or more likely, both. At this time, CCS has not committed to pursuing any legal action against Aon to recoup any of the money lost through the company’s documented breaches of contract.
“CEA members were kept in the dark for months about the unfolding scandal that led us to this point and denied the opportunity to engage in informed conversations about how to effectively solve these problems together,” Coneglio said. “We owe it to our members and their families to fight for a fair solution, one that protects the educators our students rely on every day. We want to keep great educators in our classrooms who can be laser-focused on their work delivering the great public education all Columbus students deserve.”
ABOUT CEA
The Columbus Education Association is the Union representing over 4,500 teachers, librarians, nurses, counselors, psychologists, and other education professionals in Columbus City Schools. The Columbus Education Association is a proud affiliate of the Ohio Education Association and the National Education Association