CARVER — Six months after Town Meeting voted $4 million to cover the collapse of its employee health plan, Carver’s own records show a bill that is still growing and a question that is still open: who pays the employees’ share, which one Select Board member put at about $1 million.

That account comes from the Select Board’s posted minutes from February through Sept. 8 and the minutes of the April 7 Annual Town Meeting. Carver belonged to the Gateway Health Group, a small, self-funded insurance pool it shared with Lakeville and the Old Rochester Regional School District. Members paid their employees’ claims from a shared trust. Gateway dissolved on June 30, and its members have approved more than $6.9 million to cover its losses, according to Lakeville’s Special Town Meeting minutes. Carver’s $4 million is the largest share.

Carver was a relative newcomer to the pool. The April 10 minutes note that the town was with Blue Cross Blue Shield before July 2024, which puts its time in Gateway at about two years.

The $1 million question

Under Carver’s union contracts, employees pay 25 percent of the cost of their health insurance. The Town Meeting warrant said the town would work with Gateway and its employees “to address the issue of recovering their share of liability for health insurance once we determine the total liability.”

At the March 17 Select Board meeting, member John Cotter asked what the plan was to recoup that 25 percent, which the minutes record him saying “equates to 1 million dollars.” Town Administrator Glenn Cannon said there was no plan at that time, according to the minutes.

Five weeks later, the April 21 minutes said the town’s Public Employee Committee “has had some discussion but no real negotiations regarding the 25% that would be due from the employee as the portion of the Four-Million-dollar insurance shortage.” The board voted 5-0 that night to start the process under Chapter 32B, Sections 21 through 23, the state law that governs changes to municipal health benefits and runs through the Public Employee Committee.

None of the Select Board minutes posted since then, through Sept. 8, records how or whether the employees’ share was settled.

An audit request and a legal budget

On March 17, Chair Mark Townsend read a statement into the record. He said NFP, the consultant Gateway’s members paid for guidance, told them in December that the pool faced a deficit “possibly as high as $7 million for this year, even though we weren’t even halfway through the year.” Carver’s share, he said, “could be as high as $4 million dollars,” and the deficit “jeopardizes the health care coverage our employees receive right now.”

“It is clear that NFP has completely failed” to provide competent guidance, Townsend said in the statement. He said the town was considering “possible litigation against NFP” and seeking a comprehensive audit of the fund, and that the board had voted to ask State Auditor Diana DiZoglio to “initiate an investigation and audit of the Gateway Health Group.” The G.O.A.T. News found no public statement from the auditor’s office on the request. The town’s records do not include a response from NFP.

The board has voted at least five times this year to go into executive session to discuss litigation strategy involving Gateway, including on March 10, March 31 and, most recently, Sept. 8. On July 7, it voted 5-0 to move $80,000 from the Finance Committee’s reserve fund into the legal budget. The minutes say the expense “is due to the Gateway Health group issues.” They do not say whether a suit has been filed.

Carver is not the only member asking questions. In January, the Old Rochester Regional School Committee took up a proposal to hire outside counsel to evaluate how the trust was run and what its broker did. The same report showed the trust was already $1.1 million short on June 30, 2025, months before the December warning Townsend described.

Where the $4 million came from

On March 10, Cannon told the board the projected deficit was going to be $4 million “and this is a crisis,” according to the minutes. The town’s stabilization fund held $4,474,970.69. The minutes note the health insurance article as first written would take more than half of it, which “can impact the bond rating.” The board voted 4-1, with Cotter opposed, to deviate from the town’s financial policies and draw $1,023,920 from the stabilization fund.

By Town Meeting, that same $1,023,920 was coming from the surplus in the town’s solar net metering revolving fund instead. Voters approved the full $4 million in two motions. They raised $1,510,295 on the fiscal 2027 tax levy, 118 to 30, and moved $1,465,785 in free cash plus the solar fund money, 120 to 17.

The money came with worries about where it would go. At the March 17 meeting, Townsend asked what guardrails would make sure Carver’s payment covered only Carver employees’ claims. The minutes state that “there is no way to guarantee that the funds paid by Carver will pay for Carver Town employee claims,” and record Cannon saying Carver should not send funds until the other two members paid their portions. Asked whether employees’ health care would be disrupted, Cannon said it “is being impacted currently,” according to the minutes.

The cost reached other parts of the budget, too. At a June 2 joint meeting with the Finance Committee, the minutes record that “Capital was cut to be used for Health Insurance, debt was authorized.”

The new plan

The board voted 5-0 on March 17 to leave Gateway before an April 1 deadline. On March 31, it voted 5-0 to sign a health benefits trust agreement with the Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Association, known as MIIA. Townsend thanked attorney John Clifford and consultant Sue Shillue for “getting us through this Health Insurance process.”

The rates came before the board at an 8 a.m. meeting on April 10, three days after Town Meeting. Shillue, of the HILB Group, said she had been brought in “to oversee what was going on with the previous health care group (Gateway) and procure health insurance for employees & retirees for July 1st.”

Member Sarah Hewins said the town’s other choice “would have been a 50% increase,” according to the minutes. Townsend said the town was “so late in the game because we didn’t think we would get anyone to offer the Town health insurance.”

Cotter asked whether the board had to vote that day and said he wanted more time and information. Cannon said the vote had to happen then. Member Jim Hoffman asked whether the town’s Insurance Advisory Committee had been told all of it. Cannon said the committee had discussed a percentage increase “but not the other options or in depth like this.” The board approved the rates, including dental, on a unanimous roll call. The town made a two-year commitment, and rates for the second year will come later.

The board itself

The Select Board’s members, according to the Sept. 8 minutes, are Chair Mark Townsend, Vice Chair Dan Ryan, John Cotter, Sarah Hewins and Jim Elliman. Hoffman appears in the minutes as a member through April.

Two other items in the minutes bear on how closely the town’s finances were being watched as the crisis unfolded. The March 10 minutes note that “the Finance Committee has not met for three months.” And at the June 2 joint meeting, Finance Director Karen Preval said the town was still waiting on its fiscal 2024 audit from its outside auditor, CBIZ.

Carver does post its Select Board minutes online, which is what makes this account possible.

Barrella serves on the Middleborough Finance Committee and the Town Manager Search Committee. Neither body has a role in Carver’s health insurance. Middleborough buys employee coverage through the state Group Insurance Commission and was not a Gateway member.