What’s the BIG news?

This afternoon, Human Resources presented information to the Board of Supervisors in preparation for discussions we’ll be having with the Joint Boards on October 8th. At that time, we’ll be presenting items for the Boards’ consideration, which will include compensation, medical/dental, and sick leave policy recommendations. In the meantime, we want you to be aware of the topics that will be up for discussion.

What should I know today?

Medical: As you may know, our medical plan is self-funded. This means that we are, in effect, our own insurer. Rather than buying coverage from an insurance company, our medical reserve plan takes the funds that employees and the Boards pay for the coverage and uses those funds to pay for our claims as we visit doctors, purchase prescriptions, etc. Being self-insured allows us the most control over our costs and our plan benefits options. When evaluating our medical plan, the Health Care Executive Committee (HCEC) takes the following into consideration:

• offer affordable options that meet varying needs of employees and their families
• maintain  reserves at  approximately 25% of claims
• ensure plans are in compliance with the Affordable Care Act (ACA; otherwise known as Health Care Reform)
• maintain our competitive position for benefits (slightly above market )

As we prepare for the October 8th meeting, you should be aware that we must make some changes to the way we allocate Board contributions toward a covered employee’s insurance in order to avoid the upcoming ACA penalty tax (known as the “Cadillac Tax”) on our plan. Additionally, the University of Virginia’s decision to drop spouse coverage (for those who had access to affordable coverage through their own employers) created a costly ripple effect in the local community. This, coupled with the fact that our covered spouses incur 20% more claims than our employees do, has been an additional topic of discussion for the HCEC.

Sick Leave: The advent of the new VRS Hybrid retirement plan back in January has created a situation where one group of employees has different—and in most cases, better—benefits than other employees have. Hybrid Plan employees (these are non-hazardous duty employees who were hired on/after 1/1/14 who were new to VRS at the time they were hired here) have state-mandated leave benefits. These include employer-paid short-term and long-term disability coverage. In order to avoid the inconsistencies that will occur between leave administration of non-Hybrid and Hybrid employees, we have worked to identify solutions that will result in clear, equitable leave policies/benefits as we go into the future. Our efforts around this issue have had the following goals:

• Provide adequate sick leave for all employees, regardless of VRS status
• Create/maintain one leave program that is simple to explain and administer
• Benefits that are consistent with our total compensation strategies

Over the last year, many of you have graciously given your time to attend focus groups or staff meeting presentations, viewed our video, participated in our survey, or even called/popped by the benefits office to discuss your concerns. We’ve heard you, and based on your desire to keep your accrued sick leave balances, we’ve designed an option for Board consideration that can both address the leave benefit inconsistencies and preserve access to current sick leave balances, going forward.

What do I need to do?

Remember that any recommendations made to the Boards (or subsequently approved by them) will not impact employees until the next plan and/or fiscal year. Be sure to continue to read our communications on these very important topics, so that you are well informed about the details of what will be discussed by the Boards on October 8th and onward.

For more detailed information about your employee benefits, our web pages are always available when you are.