7/31 Weekly Email + Pet Insurance
Hi all,
I have a couple reminders and promotional tidbits this week, then a brief writeup on pet healthcare.
August Member Meeting: Our next member meeting will be at the JGM Water Plant on Thursday, August 21st, from 12-1PM. You can rsvp here until Thursday, August 14th. Please remember that we now need rsvps 1 week in advance to give people union business time for our meetings.
Please note that the parking for the JGM Plant is a little hard to find if you haven’t been there before. Please reference the attached photo or the instructions on our Events Page if you need directions.
Employee Development Day: As a reminder from last week, Employee Development asked that I remind members of the upcoming Employee Development Day happening on August 4th at the Tempe Center for the Arts. You’ll be able to meet one-on-one with City of Tempe experts for personalized coaching on career growth and development (limited slots available), update your professional headshot, meet with the Educational Partners, and walk away with practical tools for delivering feedback, navigating difficult conversations, and more. There are longer descriptions of all the available sessions here. As a bonus, the first 100 attendees will receive a free book from the keynote speaker, Nicole Lance!
If you’ve been thinking about taking advantage of the City of Tempe Educational Partnerships to get a new degree, I would strongly encourage attending this event. Maricopa County Community Colleges were recently added as a partner and they’re one of the cheapest and most accessible set of degree programs in the area - if you sign up through the Rio Salado online program you can finish dozens of degrees completely online. The representatives attending should be able to answer all of the questions you might have about going back to school - if not, you can at least share your information so they can follow up down the road.
Community Services Office Hours: This is specific to Community Services (CS) but I’m interested in feedback from members in other areas. CS Director Craig Hayton has started office hours every payday Friday from 10-12pm in his office on the second floor of the library. I believe this was in direct response to the suggestions from the April employee-led workshop (mentioned in my 6/26 email), which was itself a response to the Employee Survey feedback where employees across the City had indicated a lack of connection to their department’s management team. One, I always like highlighting when employee feedback manifests changes, but two, I want to urge CS employees to take advantage of this opportunity and stop by every so often. I have spoken to Craig multiple times and he is intensely passionate about employee morale and inclusion. If you have feedback about your area, positive or negative, I think he’ll take it to heart and/or pass on the comments to someone who oversees your workgroup. This is also a great opportunity (if you’re a CS employee) to develop a relationship with a director - while I don’t know if there are tangible benefits (he can’t directly give you a job, for instance), there’s really no downside to have a personal connection to the person who runs your department.
I bring this up in an email to all members because I’d like to hear if people would like the same opportunities for their workgroups. I am more than happy to make the case in Labor Management meetings that more directors need to offer something similar for their departments - while I can’t guarantee that all will have the time or the desire to do so, I will make it clear that their presence is requested and appreciated by their team.
Envision Center: I’ve mentioned Tempe’s Envision Center a few times in prior emails but wanted to continue plugging their work. The center (located over at 1310 E Apache) is a community hub that offers resources and frequent educational opportunities to the community. Their webpage has a built in calendar with some interesting upcoming events - I see they’re offering a podcasting class for children, a guide to renting for adults, CPR classes once a month, and financial empowerment classes every Friday. The center also has certain resources like their heat resilience hub and a connection with Bank on Arizona, which helps people who don’t have access to banks in their area. I would encourage anyone vaguely interested in their services to at least stop by to visit - it’s a very welcoming environment and a fairly unique set of services being offered by a Valley city. Maybe what they offer doesn’t apply to you, but I know I have friends and family members who could use some of their resources.
Pet Insurance and Coverage: One of my family’s pets experienced some major medical complications in the last week, forcing hospitalization and some large bills. We were privileged enough to be able to afford a few treatments but I know that isn’t true of everyone - I know a lot of members have pets (per Forbes, 66% of American households have at least one pet) and don’t want any of our members to ever be in a position where they have to figure out if they can afford medical treatment or not. For many people, myself included, pets are family, and I couldn’t imagine a situation where you couldn’t afford appropriate care for your family - as such I wanted to share some resources with you that might help reduce pet healthcare costs. These are a few things I’ve found after some research online and may or may not be things I have personal experience with. UAEA is not endorsing any of these (nor do we get any money from recommending them) - I simply want members to know that they exist so they have extra options in the future.
Care Credit: Care Credit is a credit card specifically designed for healthcare needs. Promotional offers vary based on your credit score, but many people are eligible for a plan where you can pay using this card and pay no interest for 6-18 months if your healthcare expenses were over $200. Crucially, their perks also apply to pets. Given that many checkup exams (doctor’s time, bloodwork, xrays, etc) can be over $200, this is a good option both for unexpected expenses and for routine preventive healthcare - if caught early enough, many pet conditions can be treated or reduced in intensity, which may save money down the road and/or expand their lifespans. Care Credit is not the only credit card out there and credit cards certainly have drawbacks - again, this is just an option.
Pet Medicine: Tempe used to have a partnership with Inside Pets RX, a company that provides discounted savings on pet medicine. It appears the link on the Bridge to that company is dead, so check out this link. Pet medicines can be ordered online from speciality companies but many are just repackaged human medicines - it may also be worth checking with your normal pharmacy to see if they can fulfill any prescriptions you have.
Pet Insurance: Pet insurance is one way to manage costs - many companies offer plans that offer 80-90% off of medical treatments. I’ve had limited experiences with pet insurance so I can’t talk intelligently about the different companies - this link at least provides some analysis of most of the major companies and what they can offer in terms of treatment options, deductibles, and types of coverage.
Longterm, I’m also keeping an eye on the federal government - there is a bill currently being discussed by Congress that would allow people to pay for pet healthcare expenses with their existing Health Savings Account (HSA). If that bill passes (and there’s no guarantee that it will), I will follow up with information about any changes that are coming to HSA plans and when people can start using those funds.
Finally, I should also note that we discussed the City offering pet insurance in our last MOU negotiations - we plan to do so again when we next re-open our contract. It feels like a logical fit with other city policies and would be a great perk to potentially attract additional applicants - nothing is a slam dunk, but it feels like an easier sell than some of our other proposals.
Thanks for a great week, everyone!