Heath Insurance Increases concern all City
Employees
As
you know, the city is saying that this year there is a projected increase of
23 million dollars to the health insurance fund. This number supposedly does not include the 10 million dollars the city lost in
2004 due in part to their wildly incorrect projections on how many employees
would pay $700.00 extra to keep their deductible at $300.00. (Ed. Note: 6%
actual vs 70% projected)
During
the scheduled benefit meetings this week, the City will no doubt trumpet the
fact that their contributions will increase from the 49% - 2004 Budget to
53% - 2005 Budget. But please
keep in mind that the additional 10 million dollars that the city is
planning to contribute this year is still less than the 15 million dollars
than they took from the fund to balance other areas of the budget last year.
So in actual fact they will still be retaining 5 million of the funds they
took last year, while expecting the employees to come up with 13 million
dollars in addition to the 24 million dollars in fund reductions, premium
increases and benefit reductions from last year.
The
scheduled employee meetings will not cover the 3000 employees and dependents
that use the HMO plan. They will be told they can expect an increase, but
will not be told how much it will be. This presentation is primarily
concerned with giving the employees using the PPO several bad choices and
then asking them to pick the one they hate the least. Seems a bit of a dodgy
management trick, give only bad choices to the employees and then make them
choose one. This is a sneaky way to truthfully say, “This is what the
employees decided they wanted.” When they were actually given no real
choice.
Questions
you may want to ask at the benefits meetings.
Where
is the HMO cost increase info? Shouldn’t this information be available at
a benefits meeting?
Will
the final defined benefit PPO and
HMO be available 6 weeks in advance for employees to informed decisions?
Will
the benefits department make available a .pdf or url link to the most recent
drug formulary at least 6 weeks in advance of signup?
The
presentation shows other plans, but they are all private industry. Why did
we not compare to the plans being used by the City of
Fort Worth
or
San Antonio
?
Will the drug program be a stand-alone program again this year?
Is our percentage of costs for medication going up this year?
If so, will these increases also include the mail order option?
Humana’s PPO provider network is less than ½ the size of the previous
provider United Health Care’s once one leaves the
Dallas
area. Can this be addressed?
Who are the current providers for Mastectomy services in
Dallas
?
The ehealth insurance link given with the PPO presentation is for
individuals, students and small businesses. Why was it included in the
presentation?
Golden
Rule heavily promotes ‘Health Savings Accounts’ which are not exactly
older employee consumer friendly. Why are we using them to compare health
benefits for a major employer?
Ceticare
is used for comparison, why? They don’t include pregnancy or pre-existing
conditions for the first year.
And
finally we need to ask how we are suppose to absorb all these cost increases
year after year when our take home pay continues to stagnate. The city is
currently thinking about a capped merit program, which means only some
employees will be getting a raise, and then only some employees will get the
top capped percentage of four percent, leaving the rest with little or no
pay increases to cover this further erosion of our health benefits. The city
went from fully paying for the plan to less than 50%, in 2004 when will it
stop?
You
want to comment on this - Click here
Who says we don’t work hard?
Well actually quite a few people, who don’t know any
better. But possibly they are not all to blame. After all, if an elected
official trumpets ‘our employees are not taking care of business’ every
chance they get, how are the citizens to know any different?
Did
you know that there exist 3,228 miles of alleys in Dallas that department of
Streets is expected to maintain with a crew of about 20 people?
To put
this in perspective, if you travel on I 35 from Laredo (Where I 35 starts)
to Duluth, Minnesota (Where I 35 ends) and come back you still have 100 more
miles left to cover the miles of
alleys in Dallas.
Think
about how many states that covers and how many people and dollars are used
to maintain that much road? Then compare it with how many dollars are
budgeted to maintain our alleys. Don’t forget also, that the twenty people
assigned to maintain them also have other job duties like shoulder and
drainage work.
Enough
about alleys lets talk streets. There are 11,479 miles of streets in
Dallas
. This distance could start
in
San Francisco
, travel completely across
the country to
Virginia Beach
and back again. Then you
could drive to
Laredo
and still have enough miles left to do a trip from
Laredo
to
Duluth
and back.
Whew!
What a road trip. Granted alleys are only one lane, and some of our streets
are only two, but this is still a lot of pavement to take care of. Also we
must factor in number of people laid off in the 80’s and 90’s. People
gone never to return, yet the streets and alleys they are responsible for
maintain continue to be built and age. Smaller crews working on more and
more ageing pavement, makes you wonder doesn’t it? They must be doing
something right or we would not be able to get from one side of
Dallas
to the other.
You
want to comment on this - Click here
Pay
for Performance doesn’t work
Texas
teachers have gained a new
point in their effort to avoid faddish "incentive pay" schemes
that are really designed to pay them less: Corporate America apparently
doesn't like pay-for- performance, either.
The teachers have argued that there will be no appropriate performance
measures, that the limits in some proposals would artificially cut off
incentive pay for teachers who perform well and that the Legislature won't
fund the program adequately.
Today's Wall Street Journal adds this point: a new survey suggests
pay-for-performance programs in corporate
America
don't work.
In a story buried on Page 2 of the Personal Journal section, the
newspaper states that about 83 percent of surveyed companies that have tried
pay-for-performance schemes say the approach is only some what successful or
not working at all, according to Hewitt
Associates, "a global human-resources consulting firm."
Most of the companies that have moved to these systems struggle to
communicate goals and measure results, the report states. – txaflcionews
Ed.
Note. Oh, been there, done that. Some
Dallas
employees may recall that when our current dysfunctional
merit system was put in to place the first thing that most employees noticed
was that it DECREASED the amount of their merit raise. So, the Texas
Teachers are dead on the money on this one.
This
merit plan was sold to us and many others including the city of
Ft.
Worth. Who has already
dismantled parts of this program and returned to step raises.
We don’t want an unworkable merit, we want a Cost of Living
Adjustment. It has been four years since we were granted one. It is time,
don’t you think?
You
want to comment on this - Click here
Vanishing
Bus Passes??
Last
year, a parking fee was instituted, and this money was earmarked to restore
the city bus pass program. At
that time a lovely email was sent to all employees about how this benefit
was being restored and what a wonderful benefit it was….
Not
too amazingly, the email did not mention that this restoration was going to
be paid for using the parking fee funds paid by other City Employees. Now
however, bus passes are again on the chopping block. Does that mean that if
the bus passes are eliminated then parking fees paid by the city employees
will also be eliminated or reduced? Not much chance of that is there? :D
Isn’t
it wonderful, we are not only employees but we are also a Revenue source?
:p Gives one a warm
feeling doesn’t it? Not unlike severe heartburn.
Amusing
http://www.employeeblues.com
Shirts,
mugs, clocks, mouse pads… gear for the ‘gruntled employee.
J
You
want to comment on this - Click here
WHAT’S
YOUR OPINION?
