12/18 Weekly Email
Hi all,
This is a light week. I have a few reminders and some information on our new Nationwide contract.
Christmas Holiday: Next Thursday is Tempe’s Christmas holiday - please don’t come to work if you’re not scheduled. I know a lot of people will be taking vacation next week so I’ll probably send out a short weekly email on Wednesday.
Mobile Mammograms: The City is once again offering free mammograms through the Mobile Mammography group throughout the month of January. They also have a new service this year that will provide even more accurate cancer detection for an extra $40 - while not free, the cost could be covered by your Flexible Spending Accounts or Mediflex accounts. 13% of women (1 in 8) will develop breast cancer at some point during their life and 2.3% of those with breast cancer will die from it - it’s really worth it to take advantage of this resource if you’re covered by Tempe insurance.
CPR Classes: I’ve attached an email with links to sign up for Risk Management’s CPR classes in January and March. If you don’t know CPR I would strongly urge you to take a class - it’s an invaluable skill that genuinely will mean the difference between life and death in emergency scenarios. These classes also include AED, First Aid, and Stop the Bleed Training for free - if you were to take them out in the community, such as through ASU, that training would be about $100 per person.
Tempe Art and Recreation Classes: Registration for Spring Arts and Recreation classes opened on Monday. Many classes have already filled but I would encourage members to take a look at the options - there are many low-cost options if you or a family member are interested in trying new hobbies in 2026. If you don’t live in Tempe it may also be worthwhile to look at local offerings at your cities’ community colleges or art centers - I’ve taken some great classes at the Mesa Arts Center before and have heard great things about the Phoenix art classes. If you are currently working on a degree through any of the Maricopa Community Colleges you can also get free access to Phoenix Forge, a makerspace in Phoenix which offers metal-working, wood-working, and jewelry classes. There are some free spots available for ASU students as well, but those are not guaranteed.
Nationwide RFP: Tempe City Council approved a new Nationwide contract last week so I can finally talk about some work UAEA and other 6-sided partnership members have been working on behind the scenes. Tempe has used Nationwide to manage 457k and 401k funds for the last several years but the 6-sided team decided in late 2024 that we’d like to see what other options were out there and whether we could get lower fees for employees who participate in the plans. We opened a RFP (Request for Proposal) process and 5 companies, including Nationwide, submitted proposals. The 6-sided group then spent many weeks during the late summer/early fall reviewing each proposal (a total of about 1200 pages of materials) and filling out an elaborate rubric designed to determine which company had the best offerings and best fees. While there were 3 top finalists, we ultimately decided to continue with Nationwide - we understand that it can be difficult to re-educate members when transitioning to a new platform and Nationwide provided us a new rate which was a reduction of over 50% in annual fees, savings which will be passed on to every employee putting money towards their 457k plans. You can see more information in the attached document - there’s some more details about who bid and how the 6-sided group approached this process. I mention this partially to illustrate some of the work we do behind the scenes but also to stress that we are actively interested in managing employee costs - rest assured we will approach our healthcare plans the same way when that contract comes up for renewal in a few years.
January Member Meeting(s): UAEA will be having its first-ever annual members meeting on January 15th. This meeting will go over what UAEA worked on in 2025, what we’re planning to do in 2026, upcoming opportunities for member involvement, and will have a little time for one-on-one questions with the board. We are planning to do two sessions on January 15th, one at 5:30am at TMOC Building 1 (2090 W Rio Salado Parkway, Tempe, AZ), and one at 12pm at the Tempe Historical Museum (809 E Southern Ave, Tempe, AZ). Both sessions will be available virtually if you can’t attend in person, but we’d love to see as many members as possible.
Thanks for a great week, everyone!