Hi all,
I have a few new updates and reminders, in the following order this week.
Halloween Reminders
Retirement Reminders
October Virtual Meeting
Tempe Fitness Challenge
Employee Survey
Employee Development Classes
Tempe Veteran’s Day Breakfast
LGBTQ+ History Month
1. Halloween Reminders: Halloween is this Saturday so I wanted to include a few safety reminders for those who will be trick-or-treating. I’d like to remind people again that Halloween is a dangerous holiday for pedestrians, especially children - Children are more than twice as likely to be hit by vehicles on Halloween than any other day of the year. Please be extra careful and wear reflective clothing and/or carry glow sticks and flashlights when you and your loved ones are out and about. The same applies for members who plan to attend holiday parties over the weekend - not everyone on the road will be sober, so please be vigilant.
2. Retirement Reminders: I briefly attended last week’s retirement expo but was unable to stay for more than a few minutes - some unexpected business meant that I could only gather materials from the different groups. I’ve included a few notes from the available materials and have also included some details from the sessions I attended last year (new content is in red). As a reminder, our Nationwide plan sponsor is Nancy Feibach and she can be reached at either 602-293-1156 or nancy.feibach@nationwide.com if you have any questions or want to make changes to your 457k plan (each conversation with a financial representative also counts for 5 points toward your healthcare incentive, so there’s a few reasons you may want to reach out).
Medical Insurance: Arizona State Retirement (AZSRS) offers post-retirement medical and dental insurance coverage. Retirees in AZSRS can opt to sign up for the plans if they are eligible for Medicare and fees for the coverage are deducted automatically from the monthly AZSRS checks (if your check is high enough to cover the full amount). They also partially subsidize the insurance coverage if you have multiple years of service time - this is known as the “Health Insurance Premium Benefit.” If you have more than 5 years of service time with AZSRS when you retire, they will cover $50/month - if you have more than 10 years of service, they’ll cover $100/month. I know a lot of people wonder where they’ll get or how they’ll pay for insurance after they leave Tempe - depending on what sort of coverage you need, this may be a good option.
Beneficiary Premiums: In most cases your AZSRS pension pays out on a monthly basis until your death and then stops. There are other options though - there are at least 6 different ways you can choose to receive your benefits that range from ensuring your spouse gets a few additional payments after your death to ensuring they get a continued monthly annuity until their own passing. That said, some of these options require that you receive a lower monthly benefit from AZSRS until your passing, so there are some tradeoffs to consider.
The same applies for the Health Insurance Premium Benefit - you can opt in to receive a lower amount each month but in return your spouse will continue receiving the health insurance subsidy after you pass. You can check what the reduced benefit would be by going to the AZSRS website, clicking on the “Retiree” tab and then the “Healthcare” tab, and then clicking “Calculate your Optional Premium Benefit.”
Retirement Formula: Your monthly retirement pension is set by a simple formula that multiplies your total service years by your average monthly compensation (36 or 60 month average, based on when you joined AZSRS), multiplied by the “Graded Multiplier," a number that starts at 2.1% and goes as high as 2.3%, based on your total years of service. Someone with 15 years of service at retirement making $3600 on average per month could calculate their monthly pension as 15 multiplied by $3,600 multiplied by 0.021 = $1,134/month - that would be 32% of their normal monthly income. It’s worth noting that all you need to do to calculate the percentage of your income is multiply your service years by the graded multiplier - for 30 years of service, for instance, the graded multiplier is 2.3%, meaning your monthly pension would be 69% of your monthly income. As far as I can tell, the only way to reach full replacement of one’s income is to work 44 years in AZSRS - that would entitle someone to a monthly premium of 101% of their monthly income in retirement. I have two points here - first, it’s pretty easy to calculate how much you’ll get from AZSRS once you have the formula. Second, given the way the formulas work AZSRS will almost never be the sole source of income in retirement - individuals should plan to supplement it with money from their 457k, Social Security, or personal savings.
For reference, here are the graded multipliers
0-19.99 years of service - 2.1%
20-24.99 years of service - 2.15%
25-29.99 years of service - 2.2%
30+ years of service - 2.3%
Working After Retirement: AZSRS members can continue working after retirement but cannot work full time for an AZSRS employer without losing their benefit. There are 4 ways they can get around this restriction.
Work for a non-AZSRS employer
Work as a temporary worker at an AZSRS employer
Work less than 20 hours/week for an AZSRS employer
Work full time for an AZSRS employer but only after you are past a normal retirement threshold and at least 365 days have passed since your formal retirement.
Plan Withdrawals: Employees generally cannot make withdrawals from their 457k plan prior to retirement. There are a few exceptions that people should be aware of though. First, employees ending their service with Tempe (retirement or resignation) are eligible to withdraw funds at that time - the funds do not need to remain in the 457k plan. Second, employees who have experienced unforeseen personal life events (such as domestic violence, the threat of home foreclosures, major medical bills, etc) may be eligible to withdraw some of their account to help with life expenses. Nationwide can answer specific questions about what sorts of events qualify for this. Finally, employees with less than $5,000 in their 457k plans and who have not deferred money into their account for 2 years, can do a one-time withdrawal of funds.
Please remember that while there are no penalties for withdrawing funds early, 457k plans are tax-deferred, which means your withdrawal will be taxed as ordinary income at the point you withdraw.
Consider Roth 457ks: As noted above, 457k plans are tax-deferred, which means participants will pay taxes on any withdrawals they make in retirement. This can make sense if you don’t want to pay taxes now or believe the future tax rate will be lower. However, if you can afford to pay the taxes now, believe you’ll be in a higher income bracket at retirement, or believe future tax rates will be higher, it may be worth considering Roth 457ks, where you are immediately taxed on your contributions. Yes, there’s a financial hit now, but you could theoretically save thousands to tens of thousands of dollars upon retirement.
Nancy Feibach from Nationwide can walk you through the benefits (or downsides) of setting up a 457k account.
4. Tempe Fitness Challenge: If you’re part of Tempe’s healthcare program, you are eligible to participate in November’s “Wellbeing Airways” Challenge. Participants who earn 2,000 fitness points during November will be eligible for weekly drawings of $25 giftcards and a grand prize drawing of $50. More information can be found on healthymetempe.com.
5. Employee Survey: Results from the last Employee Survey will be presented to City staff on November 12th, from 1:30-2:30PM. There will be an in-person meeting at Tempe City Hall Council Chambers (Garden Level, 31 E 5th St, Tempe, AZ 85281) and an option to attend virtually. I will be attending this session and taking notes for a future UAEA email, but encourage members to also attend in case they have any questions on the content. The link to attend virtually can be found here. Employees attending in-person can park City vehicles on 6th street or their personal vehicles in the City Hall Parking Garage. Validation is available in Council Chambers.
6. Employee Development Classes: The following classes/opportunities will be offered by Employee Development in November and December. I believe all still have openings and each has some valuable information for City staff to learn and disseminate.
NOVEMBER
11/5 Habits & Hacks: Your Playbook for a More Efficient, Effective, and Enjoyable Career in Tempe
11/13 Lead Forward: Tempe Mentor Program (applications due)
11/18 & 11/19 Crucial Conversations for Mastering Dialogue
DECEMBER
12/2 Crucial Influence
12/8 Presentation Skills: Purposeful PowerPoint
7. Tempe Veteran’s Day Breakfast: Tempe will once again be running its annual Veteran’s Day Breakfast from 530-830am on Thursday, November 5th. It will take place at the Tempe Envision Center (Envision Center, 1310 E Apache Blvd, Tempe, AZ 85281), and both veterans and veteran’s spouses are invited to attend.
If you haven’t RSVP’ed already, please do so by clicking the link below. Also, if you have veterans or veteran spouses in your workplace, please forward this e-mail to them.
8. LGBTQ+ History Month: October is LGBTQ+ History Month so I wanted to once again spotlight some important queer labor leaders. I’ve done writeups in the past on queer activists like Bayard Rustin, Dr Marie Equi, Harvey Milk, and Pauline Newman - if interested, you can find those on our blog. One interesting thing I’ve noticed while compiling information about more modern activists is that it is shockingly difficult to find detailed information about certain parts of their lives. Despite improved technology and record-keeping, there are some people like Nancy Wohlforth or Cleve Jones that have very limited information available about them online, and a variety of life experiences that make creating a unified timeline quite difficult.
Cleve Jones (1954-present): Cleve was born in Indiana in 1954 and moved to Arizona as a teen. He knew he was gay from a young age but felt incredibly isolated by his community in both states - he didn’t know any fellow gay people and wasn’t aware of broader queer culture until he read an article about the Gay Liberation Movement in Life Magazine in 1971. He attended ASU for less than a year but felt alienated from his peers - he came out to his parents and dropped out, choosing instead to move to San Francisco in 1973. At some point he befriended Harvey Milk but was not directly involved with Milk’s work until 1977. After several years hitch-hiking in Europe and the Middle East, Cleve moved back to San Francisco and was encouraged by Harvey to return to college. He studied political science (and based on interviews, an early version of queer studies) at San Francisco State University while interning at Milk’s campaign office (and later Milk’s City Hall office). He also developed organizing experience while campaigning against Proposition 6, an initiative which would have barred gay people from working in California schools, and the San Francisco gay community’s Coors Beer Boycott, a localized version of a nationwide effort by gay, black, women, and latino organizations to push back against discriminatory hiring and employment practices at the Coors Beer company.
After Harvey Milk’s assasination in 1978, Cleve moved to Sacramento and became involved in state politics. He worked in the offices of state assemblyman Art Agnos starting in 1981 and experienced considerable blowback for being one of (if not the first) openly gay California legislative staffers. Besides taking considerable flack from the public and fellow staffers, Cleve was hospitalized in 1986 after being jumped by 2 men, called a slur, and stabbed in the back. During this period Cleve also started one of the first organizations to study the still-new AIDS disease, the Kaposi's Sarcoma Research and Education Foundation (later renamed the San Francisco Aids Foundation). He also came up with an idea for recognizing the human impact of AIDS deaths after hearing in 1985 that more than 1,000 men had died from AIDS in San Francisco alone. At a memorial for Harvey Milk that November he called on people in the crowd to write down the names of those they had lost - the crowd later stuck papers with these names to the buildings in San Fran’s UN Plaza. Upon seeing the massive representation of human loss laid out in a patchwork pattern, Cleve was inspired to make a tapestry representing all those who had been lost, and worked with artist Gert McMullin to develop a massive quilt. This project became the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, a-now 54-ton mass of 55,000 fabric panels that bear the names of over 110,000 people who have died from AIDS. If laid out, the quilt would cover 30 acres, or over 22 football fields. As of 2020, this project was the largest “folk art” piece ever created.
Cleve has continued gay advocacy efforts throughout his life but got more involved with labor organizing in the early 2000s. Besides believing in coalition-building and the importance of labor rights to the queer community, a 2017 interview indicated that he believed the biggest threat to queer communities in the modern era is gentrification and displacement - there, he bemoaned how the San Francisco community he found in the 1970s couldn’t exist today due to housing prices and lack of organizing. He started working with UNITE-HERE (a US/Canada restaurant, hotel, textile, and travel industry union with 300k members) in 2005 and ran a few campaigns, including “Sleep with the Right People,” which pushed people to stay only in hotel chains that treated their workers fairly. He also pushed for UNITE-HERE contracts to include anti-discrimination language and policies that exceeded state or federal requirements, giving queer employees protections even in states which did not have anti-discrimination ordinances or LGBTQ+ protections. I’m not sure if he’s still involved with UNITE-HERE but I believe Cleve is still involved in organizing and politics to this day - as recently as April of this year I found examples of editorials he had written discussing the importance of public health efforts and organizing actions.
Nancy Wohlforth (1945-2024): Based on context clues, I believe Nancy was born in Wisconsin to a labor-friendly family - in interviews, she notes her father’s participation in Wisconsin’s AFSCME when she was young. As a highschooler she participated in the “Freedom Simmer” event to register Black Americans to vote in the rural South. This was a particularly dangerous time for voter registration efforts - prior voter registration efforts had led to beatings, arrests, and even the occasional murder of activists. 1964 was no different - during the registration drive over 1,000 volunteers were arrested, 37 churches assisting registration efforts were bombed or burned, and at least 4 civil rights workers and 3 Mississippi residents were killed (but actual numbers are unknown due to underreporting and it being unclear if people who disappeared were murdered or fled the state). Nancy thankfully survived this and went on to study at Columbia University where she participated in the 1968 Columbia protests, which opposed both the universities’ involvement in the Vietnam War and the planned construction of a segregated student gym near the campus. She later graduated with a Masters in American History.
I had difficulty determining what Nancy was doing for the next decade (I found a few references to her work organizing rent strikes over terrible housing conditions in California) but I believe she was openly identifying as a lesbian by 1978/1979. Around that time she joined the OPEIU (Office and Professional Employees International Union) Local 3 and started a sub-committee (“A Growing Concern”) which focused on issues specific to women and queer people in the workplace. She also helped found the Lesbian and Gay Labor Alliance (LGLA), a separate group which was one of the first national efforts to support queer people in the workplace. In 1983 Nancy became the Vice President and Senior Business rep of Local 3 and represented a wide range of professions across the Bay Area, including, but not limited to, dolphin trainers, elephant caretakers, art museum custodial staff, homeless shelter and detox center employees, and faculty at San Francisco schools. She built a lot of relationships in and around the community while working on queer labor issues - besides pushing for higher pay and better benefits for all workers, she argued for labor contracts that had domestic partner benefits and non-discrimination language for queer workers, and urged the California Supreme Court to strike down gay marriage restrictions. In 1994 she represented both LGLA and OPEIU at a queer labor rights conference in New York. This conference led to the merging of separate queer labor organizations, including LGLA, into PRIDE at Work (PAW) - this group was embraced as a subgroup of the AFL-CIO in 1997, only 3 years later.
In 2003 Nancy became the first openly-gay member of the OPEIU International Board when she was elected as Secretary - she may also have been the first openly-gay elected official of any international labor organization. She was then elected to serve on the AFL-CIO’s Executive Council in 2005, one of approximately 50 AFL-CIO officers representing 15 million AFL-CIO members. She retired from both groups in 2010 but continued to do advocacy and political organizing work up until her death in 2024.
Besides obvious advocacy for the queer community, Nancy understood the importance of intersectionality and coalition-building. In conversations with union and government officials about state and national equality legislation, Nancy constantly advocated for trans-inclusion, even when proponents believed that would reduce the chance of certain legislation passing. Nancy gave a speech about hate crimes at the 1999 AFL-CIO convention which pushed for coalitions to fight back against hate and disparate treatment. I think her closing lines reflect the close-knit nature of civil rights and labor rights - she ended with the following words which I think remain powerful to this day.
“From the murders of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming to the brutal murder of James Byrd, an African American in Texas, to the burnings of synagogues in Sacramento, to the shooting up of a Jewish day care in Los Angeles, to the shooting of a postal worker–Joseph Ilteo–because he was Filipino, hate crimes are on the rise….We must educate in our communities and in our unions, that all these hate crimes are linked and the targets of those groups that perpetuate the ideology of hate are always the same: People of Color, Jewish People, and lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people…We must mobilize masses of people in the streets, into the state legislatures and into all our municipal government bodies. Our message must be loud and clear: No More Hate In Our Country and that an injury to one is an injury to all!”
Floating Holiday Leave Updates: As a reminder, members have until the last pay period in December to use their Floating Holiday Leave (FHL) hours. Any time not used by December 27th will be lost, then Floating Holiday Leave banks will reset in January. Members who do not plan to use their time can donate it to UAEA through November 15th. Each additional hour donated will count as an entry in the UAEA Donation Incentive Program, which will be raffling off at least 10x$100 giftcards in 2027. As a reminder, all members receive entries in the program based off of mandatory donations, but members who donate additional hours will receive extra entries and a higher chance of winning one (or more) of the giftcards. Hours can be donated at this link.
If you’d like to check your remaining FHL hours, log into Peoplesoft HR, click on “My Time,” and then check the hours listed in the row next to “Floating Holiday Leave.”
The UAEA Board promised that we would be good stewards of FHL time and would not take more time than was needed from our members each year. We took 8 hours of FHL last year, but due to high membership levels, additional time donations, and board vacancies, we believe we will be able to operate with only 6 hours of FHL donated by members this coming year. This time will be automatically deducted from member’s leave banks in January, leaving them 18 hours to use in 2027. We would like to continue asking for 6 or even fewer FHL hours in coming years, but we unfortunately cannot forecast our needs that far in advance - everything will depend on currently unknown factors like the additional leave donations that we receive from employees, our total membership count, and our burn rate of UB hours. We will do our best to keep members posted of our needs well in advance of 2028.
UAEA November Meeting: The next in-person UAEA members meeting will be on Thursday November 19th, from 12-1PM at the Kiwanis Recreation Center (6111 S All-American Way, Tempe AZ, 85283). As a reminder, this meeting was moved from the Price Water Plant due to construction - bulletin boards will be updated soon to reflect the change. Please also note this meeting will be snack-based - we’ll be bringing a bunch of pre-packaged snacks and drinks that members can enjoy in-person or take back to their offices/city vehicles. You can sign up for the meeting here.
UAEA will also be hosting a virtual members meeting the same day (11/19) from 2-3PM. You can rsvp for that here.
Adopt a Path Signup: UAEA is currently planning to do our next Adopt a Path Cleanup on Saturday, November 21st, from 7-9AM. We’ll meet in the Tempe Parking Lot on the southeast Corner of Curry and Miller (approximate address is 1325 E Curry Road, Tempe AZ 85281, see attached photo), then walk north up our path to Mckellips Rd. Breakfast, drinks, safety gloves, trash pickers, and trash bags will be provided. Please bring a hat, sun block, and/or sunglasses. This event normally takes 1.5 hours to complete, is eligible for community wellness points, and is a great opportunity to meet members of the board and your fellow union members. If you’d like to attend, please sign up here by Thursday, September 19th, at 5pm.
Baking Contest/Dessert Exchange: UAEA is happy to also announce our 4th Quarter Contest, a Baking Contest/Dessert Exchange happening on November 17th at the Tempe Public Library. We’re letting members bring in and exchange desserts from 10-2PM on that date. Non-members can also participate (we mainly want more desserts to pick from), but only UAEA members will be eligible to enter their treats in the contest portion and/or win prizes. This year we will be accepting 4 types of entries, Sweet, Savory, Non-Traditional, and Allergen-friendly - if applicable, participants can enter one dessert in multiple categories and would be eligible for prizes in each.
A complete list of rules can be found at this link. You don’t need to, but the board would appreciate if members could also sign up in advance at this link so we have a better idea of head count before the day of the event.
Community Resources: UAEA is aware of rising fuel prices and how this is impacting members. We are having some internal city discussions about possible workplace changes, but also wanted to post some resources for members who may be struggling to make ends meet. This is a similar list to what we posted in November with a few new additions. Please feel to reach out if you have additional recommendations about local resources.
AZ Food Bank Network: This link contains information about dozens of food banks and assistance sites across Arizona. You can search by the directory and the zipcodes they provide services for to find food banks in your areas.
AZ Medical and Nutrition Assistance: This is an Arizona-State run program that can help connect people with Arizona State programs that provide assistance for people who need medical coverage, WIC support, or additional access to nutrition. I do not know all that the program entails.
Maricopa County Utility Support: This is a Maricopa County program that can help people receive assistance paying for utilities. Some cities have unique offerings while others are covered under one umbrella program.
AZ 211: This is a Arizona-State run help line that can help people connect with a variety of resources and support they may be unaware of in their area.
Tempe Employee Relief Fund: This is a Tempe-run program (paid for by employee donations) that can provide support of up to $1,200 to assist Tempe employees with unplanned emergency bills (housing, mortgage, utilities, etc).
Employee Assistance Program: If you have insurance through the City of Tempe, you can take advantage of the EAP, a group of resources which can provide free therapy, legal consultations, or classes on stress management.
Cheap Recipe Guides: These are two free cookbooks designed for cooking high-nutrition and easy meals on a budget. Even if you’re not a fan of the recipes, there are some good tips on stocking a kitchen with affordable and long-lasting staples.
Free Transit Pass: This contains information on how to obtain your free bus, streetcar, and lightrail pass as a Tempe employee.
Sun Bucks: This program offers direct payments in the summer to families whose children receive free or reduced cost school lunches
Discount Grocery Stores: This link provides a few examples of discount/salvage grocery stores around Phoenix that resell food that supermarket chains don’t want (everything is still good, usually stores get rid of items that are out of season or past their best-by date, even if still viable).
First Time Homebuyer Assistance: These links provide information on a few programs designed to help municipal or low-income employees purchase homes for the first time. Some are loans, some are down-payment assistance, some are direct financial support. The first link is an Arizona program meant for home buying in Maricopa County, but the same program is also available to Pima County residents.
Thanks for a great week, everyone!