filed a lawsuit late Wednesday<\/a> in Virginia Beach Circuit Court. Superintendent Donald R. Robertson Jr. was the only defendant listed. Robertson became acting superintendent in June 2023, after longtime Superintendent Aaron Spence left to lead Loudon County schools, and was appointed to the post in January 2024.<\/p>\nThe employees\u2019 complaint stated the district\u2019s more than 10,000 employees \u2014 who\u2019d signed annual contracts earlier this summer \u2014 didn\u2019t learn about the expected increases until they got an Aug. 7 email from the Virginia Beach Consolidated Benefits Office.<\/p>\n
The message said effective Jan. 1, insurance premiums would increase by amounts ranging from $2.04 to $210.97 per pay period, depending on the plan they had. Retirees were told their payments could grow by as much as $445.25 a month.<\/p>\n
The employees received a 3% raise this year, but it would have been eaten up by the increased premiums, according to the group\u2019s attorney, Tim Anderson.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit claimed the increase was not caused by natural health cost inflation, but was the result of Robertson\u2019s decision to end subsidies to employee health insurance costs this school year, something the district had done for the past two years at a cost of $19 million.<\/p>\n
The complaint said Robertson knew as early as March that the employees\u2019 premiums would at least double, but kept the information from them until contract negotiations were over to prevent a \u201cmass exodus\u201d of workers.<\/p>\n
Anderson sent an email to his clients late Friday, expressing gratitude that the board was moving to address the problem and laying out potential next steps.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve (board members) located some money \u2014 but we don\u2019t yet know how much, which means we must keep the pressure on,\u201d Anderson wrote. \u201cIf the Board approves enough funding so that premiums only increase at a nominal, inflation-level rate, then our lawsuit will end. That is the only acceptable outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anderson also encouraged the group to take part in an upcoming rally to bolster support for their efforts. The event will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday at the intersection of Virginia Beach and Independence boulevards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to show the community that VBCPS employees stand united until this is fixed in full,\u201d he wrote. \u201cEach of you stepped up when it mattered most, and together we forced this issue to the forefront. You are the reason this solution is even on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com<\/p>\n
Originally Published: August 22, 2025 at 7:18 PM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VIRGINIA BEACH \u2014 Just two days after more than 100 city schools employees sued the superintendent, accusing him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[526,97,252,253,2558,983,3,5148,12658,63006],"class_list":{"0":"post-103243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-education","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-care","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-local-news","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-virginia","16":"tag-virginia-beach","17":"tag-virginia-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}