The Gloucester County School Board voted Tuesday to switch health insurance providers and to ask county supervisors for an additional $250,000 for fiscal year 2017 to help cover an unanticipated $750,000 hike in health insurance costs for fiscal year 2017.

In addition, the board will ask supervisors for $149,000 in unexpended funds in its current budget to defray the increase. The decisions came during the monthly board meeting at the T.C. Walker Education Center.

School division superintendent Walter Clemons said about another $350,000 can go toward the increase through personnel attrition, cutting some proposed new positions and not filling vacant ones, and increasing employees’ health insurance contributions by about $17 per month.

Anthem is the school division’s current health insurance provider and Clemons said a cost increase for FY2017 was anticipated, so the division issued a request for proposals. He said proposals were received in mid-April and negotiations wit...