2008 Employee
Benefit Committee
Lonzie
Green, Health Benefits coordinator opened the meeting by apologizing for
not having any Employee Health Benefit Committee meetings since last
year. Apparently they had planned several times to do so, but they all
fell through for one reason or another.
Mr. Green
then warned us that the information that he was providing us could
change at any minute. In fact he stated that he was putting a big
disclaimer on that. He also made several statements about how he thinks
information provided to the committee should stay with the committee.
(Ed. Note: Possibly the
Dallas
’ version of ‘What
happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’ :) ) He felt that sometimes
employees got upset unnecessarily when they heard about something that
was only under discussion. He pointed out that not everything discussed
in the committee was going to become policy, so there was no need to get
the employees upset them over something that might not happen.
Of course,
as we all know, occasionally the reason that items being discussed
don’t become policy is that they were bad ideas. But sometimes the
reason is that once word gets out about the proposed change, people
complain and get fussy. If enough people fuss, then it is difficult for
the discussed change to be implemented, or even slipped in under the
radar.
Anyhow,
the main highlights of the meeting were; ~Possibly mandatory Generic
Drug policy, as the city non-generic usage is still four percent over
the other UHC groups. (This did not pass with out comment and the
proposal of many, many changes.)
~The
Pre-65 retired group is costing the city the most, so the city is
looking for someway to lower that cost. (See article on page 3 for more
on this)
~Despite two years of not gathering the cost/benefit information
requested by the committee, Medical Assistance in Smoking Cessation and
Weight Loss is going to be considered this year in a sub committee
headed up by the new Wellness Coordinator Dolores Green. (Despite
being headed up the Wellness Coordinator, we have been assured that the
Medical Assistance in Smoking Cessation and Weight Loss subcommittee
focus will actually be on medical assistance this time, not just
Wellness programs.)
~Wellness
is not being utilized as much as H.R. would like. Enhancements to the
program being considered are possibly opening up fourteen Park and Rec
locations for a fee. (There is also thought of getting UHC to subsidize
some of the cost of this, and even possibly discounts for employees who
live outside the city at allied health clubs.)
~Mr.
Greene will speak with H.R. Director David Etheridge about the
possibility of passing ALL of the finalized committee suggestions at
least as far as the City Managers office. This is something which has
not happened in the past two years.
~The
payment tier structure will be looked at this year. (Currently some
active groups receive more money towards their benefits than others.)
~Mr.
Greene, noted that it would be difficult to maintain the cost of our
benefits this year unless the employees started lobbing management and
council for the city to increase its share. (Despite Dallas being almost
$4000.00 per employee below the next index city in the last comparison,
City Manager Mary Suhm, states that she does not see any increase
happening. Which indeed makes one wonder; just how many years the city
figures it can get by with money that was woefully low to start with.)
~More
Departments will be encouraged to send a representative to the
meetings.
So that is
what is happening so far this year. More news as it is released.
UHC Lab
Changes Affect All
A
ten year lab contract has been implemented by United Healthcare and
LabCorp. Employees getting lab work done in their private
physician’s
office face much higher costs unless that office sends the specimens to
LabCorp or the employee locates a LabCorp draw site and goes there.
Failure to use LabCorp will result in United Healthcare paying ‘Out of
Network’ benefits which will amount to 60% of the charges, and you pay
the other 40%.
LabCorp
is a big, busy company. You will need to monitor your test results. If
the results appear to be off the wall, get the tests repeated,
especially if YOU are being tested or treated for a serious illness.
Civilians
Employees, Uniformed Supervisors
Staff Representative Roy Robinson made an open record
request for training procedures or guidelines given to uniformed
supervisors dealing with civilian subordinates. This request was made in
response to a few incidents between uniformed supervisors and the
civilian employees they supervise.
Both
uniformed chiefs responded that no such material or guidelines exist.
Since there are a few differences between uniformed rules and
civilian rules, this lack guidance could cause problems, especially if
the uniformed supervisor is inexperienced in dealing with civilian
employees. Therefore Mr. Robinson has requested a meeting with both
chiefs to address this issue.
Pre-65
Retirement Benefits
While
of course not yet carved into stone, H.R. is looking for some way to
contain the expenses of this group. One problem is of course Gov Code
175 that says you must offer Retires the same plans (but not the same
funding) as you offer current workers.
So of course the city lawyers will have to make sure any changes
do not violate the Code 175.
The
idea and the problem are the same. They would like to get all the
pre-65’s into some sort of HMO-ish UHC/AARP-ish plan that allows the
city to pay a set fee and have someone else assume the risk. The problem
of course is making sure that enough employees would take the plan with
a long enough commitment to remain in it to even tempt a provider to
offer us one. This could be a problem unless it became mandatory, which
would violate Code 175.
The
big problem of course from the retiree side is... should the city be
able to overcome the above hurdles, where does that leave the retirees
in the future? Retiree, Jennifer Varley was all over this topic. She
wanted to know what would happen if the city does figure it all out.
Ms.
Varley asked, what would happen if the city got such a plan,
successfully migrated all the pre-65’s to the new plan, saved the city
big bucks... then what? Was the city going to take their short term
savings and then shift the future
increases solely on the backs of the retirees? “Naturally,” replied
Mr. Greene, “we are not looking to increase the amount we spend.”
I was not the only one astounded at this very matter of fact
statement. Mr. Greene did try to placate the Ms. Varley by telling her
that any future increases would be covered or offset by pension cost of
living increase. Ms. Varley was a bit distressed over this as were
several other people. The retiree ‘Cost of Living Adjustments’ are
not just put in place for the convenience of H.R. shifting benefit costs
from the city to the retirees. Those COLA’s also have to ‘try’ to
cover increases in food, fuel, taxes, housing and other sundry items.
The very real fear of the Retiree reps is that the City will
take any opportunity to save money in the short term, dump those savings
into the general fund and then pass all the costs of all future
increases to the retirees.
Snipletts!
Merit
3% for 2008? – While
it is too early to know for sure, City Manager Mary Shum recently stated
that a 3% average merit may be all her budget can afford this year.
Oh, and the target date for the Merits most likely will be
January again.
Who
was that Imperial Officer? – Spurgeon Barret Jr., the son of one of our members got
to March in the Star Wars contingent during this years Rose Bowl Parade.
He is a member of the Grambling Marching Band, and made a fine imperial
officer. :)
Employee
Surveys still being mishandled – Despite written instructions to the contrary, some employees are still
being told that filling out the new employee surveys is mandatory, and
must be returned to the employee’s supervisor when completed.
Dallas
County
Gains another Unit – Staff Representative Roy
Robinson reports that the Dallas County Juvenile Probation Offices have
organized and joined the United Steel Worker Association.
USW
in the City of
Fort Worth
–
Organizer Larry Smith reports that his group is currently talking to and
signing up Ft. Worth Municipal Employees. You can read more about them
at http://www.ntape.com
South
Side WWT GBT in the cross-hairs
– Again. Apparently the promised re-structuring of this facility is
way behind schedule and some employees have issues. Possibly serious
issues.
Nurse
Carol, back to work and recovering
- Despite her recent hospitalization,
Carol-of-the-excellent-health-care-benefit-explanations is back to work.
Bummer that she could not have done the recovery thing at home using
donated leave yes? Perhaps it is time to revisit the ‘Civilian
Emergency Leave Bank’ with management, especially now that we no
longer have a city provided short-term disability program.
Net
Neutrality
– Why is it important to me? Well, large ISPs like AT&T and
Verizon want to create tiered systems and make more money by allowing
big companies to buy “fast lanes" on the Internet. This
non-neutral option will increase speed for them at the expense of
service provided to smaller companies and individual net users.
The Time to Join is Now!
Don’t
forget about the 30 day waiting period on certain services for new
members. We don’t want anyone to miss out on assistance should they
need it. The time to join is now, so you will already be a member before
any problem that you need help with occurs.
Council
Meeting Audio Available
Did
you know that you can download city council meetings? Some interesting
stuff in there. Take a listen. http://www.ci.dallas.tx.us/cso/audio.shtm
End
of year raffle Remember at the last meeting of the year you get one
raffle chance for every meeting or work session you sign in for.
Make six meetings, get six chances. So congratulations to the
members who were present at the December meeting when their names were
drawn for the gift certificates from Target, Best Buy and Chili’s.
