6/5 Weekly + Voting + Benefits Discussion

Hi all, 

I have a few reminders/updates this week and then some information on lesser-known City benefits. 

Elections: Election Polls are now open! The period for voting will be between now and Monday, June 9th, at 4PM. Please vote for your choice of Vice President before then and the Elections Committee will tabulate results as quickly as possible once polls close. 

Segal Study: If you haven't seen it already, HR published two additional documents from Segal on the Bridge last week, a final report detailing methodology and then a job-by-job breakdown. UAEA and TSA have been working jointly to try and resolve some shared concerns of our members - If you’d like some additional information on what we’re working on, check out this email I sent this week to UAEA members who filled out our survey. 

Member Meeting: Our next member meeting will be June 26th, from 12PM-PM at the Tempe Historical Museum. RSVP here by Tuesday, June 24th, at 12PM. 

I had a lovely time talking to vendors about benefits at our recent Benefits Fair. I’m working on putting together a more comprehensive writeup on Tempe benefits but wanted to pass on some basic information while it was still fresh in my mind. 

Retirement:

First, Nationwide’s 457k programs have two options for catching up on contribution if you’re nearing retirement. The first option is for people 50+ - every year past age 50 you can contribute $7500 more to your 457k, 33% higher than the normal contribution limit. The second option is for people 3 years from retirement - they can contribute up to double the normal limit ($23k/year), as long as those contributions do not exceed the amount you did not donate in the past. This is a little complicated but Nationwide can help you determine what amounts you can donate if either scenario applies. If you have questions about this you can reach out to our City Nationwide account representative, Nancy Feibach at nancy.feilbach@nationwide.com. Nancy can also meet with you to discuss long term investment options, asset consolidation, and establishing your current financial wellness. As an added bonus, each meeting with a financial representative counts as 5 points in the Healthy Me in Tempe program (but you can only earn a maximum of 10 points each year in this manner). 

Second, ASRS suggested I remind members to check/update their primary beneficiaries online. You can change your primary beneficiary online in a matter of moments - this is very important if you pass away prior to collecting benefits. You can also add a secondary beneficiary or beneficiaries if you’d like. If you are divorced ASRS will automatically remove a spouse - you have the option, if you’d like, to manually re-add them. If you pass without a named beneficiary (or if you pass and your named beneficiary has already passed), ASRS will use AZ State Law to determine who gets the remaining benefits - it would go, in order, surviving spouse, surviving children, surviving parents, and then to your remaining estate. You can make those changes on your online ASRS account at https://www.azsrsp.com/rsc-preauth/.

Third, Tempe pays for an independent group called Galloway to provide financial advice to employees. They can provide more specific advice than Nationwide on a range of topics including ASRS benefits, 457k accounts, and Social Security. They also can provide specific investment advice based on risk levels. I should caveat all of this by reminding people of my November 21st email where I mentioned that many investment professionals did not have a clear idea of where the markets would be going in the near future, but maybe the situation has changed in the last 6 months. 

Healthcare:

Pay Less for Insurance: Employees enrolled in Tempe’s Insurance have the option to participate in the Healthy Me in Tempe program. Doing healthy things like scheduling preventative screenings or taking stress management courses earns you points and earning 100 points entitles you to a deduction of $27 in insurance payments on each check. That’s an extra $702 in your paycheck every single year (up from $650 last year). This coming year there will be additional opportunities to earn points - the program is adding incentives for taking training on stress management and being a caregiver, or for getting things like colon cancer screenings or MMR vaccines. I linked the Bridge page above - you can also access the website to track points at healthymetempe.com. The 2025 fiscal year has already begun - you can enter points between now and April 30th, 2026. 

Gain Access to Gyms: I recently learned that our employee dental insurance has a little-known provision that covers discounted gym memberships. No, I don't know why it falls under dental, but let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth, right? Cigna’s Active and Fit Program provides access to your choice of thousands of gyms for as little as $28/month, with slightly higher fees if you want access to multiple locations or specialized businesses like boxing gyms. I haven’t looked into this and would love to hear what the sign up process looks like if anyone takes advantage of this. 

One little known aspect of FSAs is that you can sometimes use them to pay for gym memberships. To be clear, this is not standard and you should not go sign up for a gym membership and expect to be reimbursed. I only mention this because you can sometimes use FSA funds to pay for a gym membership if you have a doctor’s note indicating it is needed for treatment of a medical condition such as high blood pressure. I can’t speak to every member’s individual circumstances but it may be worth asking your primary care doctor if that’s something you would qualify for. 

Reduced Medical Bills: If you need to get a medical procedure done I strongly urge you reach out to Optavise in advance. Health insurance is expensive and different doctors charge different amounts for the exact same procedure. That’s not a reflection of their quality or experience - it’s more of a reflection that most people don’t go to multiple doctors to get multiple quotes so offices can charge whatever they want. Insurance companies are very interested in finding the lowest price for surgeries and procedures in each area and getting employees to choose those options - they’ll even pay you if you choose the cheapest options. Optavise is a service that will do the research for you to find doctors in your area that offer the procedure and what they charge. They will recommend 1 or 2 options that are the cheapest and if you choose one of those options they will give you a percentage of the cost savings of choosing that provider. Even if you don’t choose the cheapest option, they’ve already done the work of finding doctors for you - they even can book certain appointments for you, saving a lot of time. 

Discounted Medicine: 

If you need prescription medicine, consider using Express Scripts to check if they can get you your medicine at a lower price. Besides saving you money, Express Scripts can also deliver prescriptions to your home, saving you time waiting in a drugstore drive thru for your orders. It may take a little work to get set up on Express Scripts but as long as you can provide a prescription from your doctor you should be able to transfer the majority of your medications to their service. 

You are not limited to using Express Scripts - you should be able to get your prescriptions filled at other online pharmacies and use HSA or FSA funds to pay for everything. That said, I can’t direct members to use any specific organization but I assure you there are options and you should do some quick comparisons on drug pricing before you settle with any one pharmacy.

Education/Professional Development:

Tuition Reimbursement: Tempe has offered $6,500 in tuition reimbursement for many years but recently expanded its Educational Partnership Programs to include all of the Maricopa County Community Colleges. This means that employees can take classes at 10 MCC locations across the value or even do a degree entirely online through Rio Salado. Besides access, MCC is also one of the cheapest places to get college credits - the average cost per credit at their schools is $97-$146 per credit hour (depends on the course level), versus $500-$1200 per credit hour (depends on the course type and level) at places like ASU. If you’re trying to finish a Bachelor’s degree of 120 credits and get Tempe to pay for all of it, $6500 will pay for 40 credits a year at MCC, allowing you to finish your degree in as little as 3 years. At ASU, $6,500 will cover 5 credits a year, forcing you to take 24 years to finish a degree program. This comparison doesn’t account for miscellaneous fees, the fact you’re probably working a fulltime job and can’t take 40 credits a year, or even access to specific courses, but it hopefully illustrates that there is a significant difference in overall costs and the time it might take you to professionally advance. 

Employee Development: I’ve plugged a variety of Employee Development (ED) courses before and want to reiterate that there is a huge amount of information and resources that they provide employees for free. I would strongly recommend people sign up for the Crucial Conversations and Crucial Accountability courses that they offer - I would also suggest you look at LEAD from any Level if you would like to move up in the organization. That does require Director-level approval to attend though. I also found the Clifton Strengths Course to be very helpful at identifying my personal strengths and skill gaps - the next session of that will be on October 1st. ED also offers one-on-one coaching opportunities for employees who need help with interviewing, resumes, or even what courses might be appropriate for their interests/career. Finally, ED offers limited access to the LinkedIN Learning and Master Class video series where you can learn new skills - LinkedIN, for instance, has thousands of videos on topics like professional skills, technology trends, and enhancing personal creativity, and many of the courses come with certificates of completion to illustrate your knowledge. Access to those courses requires that you reach out and request the ability to take them - they will normally give login credentials for a set period of time, such as a month to three months. 

Thanks for a great week everyone,