BOSTON TEACHERS UNION HEALTH AND WELFARE FUND
"It took a lot off of my plate..."
The Boston Teachers Union Health and Welfare Fund is a Massachusetts Trust Fund which provides and administers employee benefits to covered Boston Public School Teachers and their eligible dependents. The Fund also administers benefits for the Boston Teachers Union Prepaid Legal Services Fund (for covered Boston teachers and their eligible dependents) and the Boston Teachers Union Paraprofessional Health and Welfare Fund (for covered Boston Public School paraprofessionals and cluster substitute teachers and their eligible dependents). The Fund offers a generous and valuable package of benefits that supplement the City of Boston’s medical plan coverage, including dental, eye care, hearing aid, MedicAlert, funeral expenses, and hospitalization income supplement benefits.
“It was a great find,” recalls Fund Administrator Gene McGlynn, describing how YPTC began helping the Fund. “They came in initially when our accountants were telling us that we needed to write a manual for our accounting and bookkeeping operations, but no one here was qualified to write it. We had also fallen behind with our audits for a multitude of reasons during the pandemic, so we needed help catching up with that.”
YPTC staff took time to better understand the Fund’s filing and bookkeeping systems. Once the audit was under way, they began getting information to the auditor. “It took a lot off of my plate and our bookkeeper’s plate,” says McGlynn. “Having someone who could speak the same language as the auditor helped a lot.”
YPTC subsequently began working to streamline Fund operations, reducing the complexities involved with four separate entities within the Fund’s programs, adding efficiencies and speeding up processes.
“It’s just been a tremendous help,” says McGlynn. “They’re very personable, very easy to talk to. They’re good people. They’ve made the large-scale changes being put in place in that department less stressful. We definitely couldn’t have done it without them.”