Benefits – Page 3 – Subject Matter Minute Blog

Subject Matter Minute, Episode #40 – Leave

The below post is taken from the Video Blog, the Subject Matter Minute. If it’s a little hard to read, it’s because it’s taken from the spoken word. You can view the episode on YouTube if you would like. Find it here: Episode #40 – Leave

If YouTube is blocked for you or your agency, you can scroll to the bottom of this post to view it from Google Drive. (I would prefer you view on YouTube, so I know how many people have watched)

You can also listen to an audio version.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Subject Matter Minute, I’m Matt Nagy, thanks for joining me! If this is your first time here…. Shame on you. (chuckle) Nah, just kidding… but if it is, you can find a link in the show notes to all the episodes and get yourself all caught up.

A brief mention of something related to one of the last regular episodes we had. It was about air ambulances in Wyoming. It was a little while back… episode #34. I got several emails from folks who have been paying yearly fees to ambulance companies or hospitals that were meant to cover a trip in an air ambulance. Well… just so you all know… The legislature passed a law that no longer allows membership plans like this. So if you are paying, stop! Or at least check into it.

I was going to treat that one person who really dislikes when I share personal info to some new stuff today, but then the episode got a bit long, so…. Sorry…. Maybe next time. 🙂

Let’s get to it… Did you know that there are 16 different types of leave available to state of Wyoming employees? I briefly covered the 2 major ones in an earlier episode, episode #12 – Full Benefits Package, but I haven’t covered the other 14.

So today, let’s talk about Leave.

So, the 2 major types of leave are Vacation and Sick leave. Since there are so many to cover, I’m going to leave those to episode #12. Let’s cover the other 14 as quickly as possible. Speaking of that… if you need all the details of any of them, you can find everything in the Personnel Rules Chapter 6… which is linked below.

The first one is a bit timely for me as I recently used some when my grandfather passed away. His funeral was in Georgia, so it was nice that you can take 5 days of bereavement leave when a family member dies. That gave me the week to deal with a wide range of things down there.

The next type of leave is Holiday Leave. Full time employees are given 8 hours leave per holiday from regularly scheduled work hours. We get:

New Years
Martin Luther King Jr.
President’s day
Memorial day
Independence day (4th of July)
Labor day
Veteran’s day
Thanksgiving
Christmas

It’s a day for each holiday. Unfortunately, it’s not like the University that gets a sweet Christmas vacation. We get one day. … but we’ll take it.

There are several if’s and when’s under holiday leave, so feel free to read about it in Chapter 6. But, generally, it’s a straightforward holiday day-off.

Next is Exempt Paid Time Off. So, if any employee exempt from overtime is required to work on a holiday they are granted paid time off at one and one-half hours for each hour worked. A little “thank-you” for taking one for the team and working on a holiday.

Next is Parental Leave. I cover this in full in episode #31. Check it out. But, what it says in short is that employees may, with Agency head approval, take accrued sick leave, comp time, vacation leave, or leave without pay beyond the time allowed under Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) for purposes associated with the birth or adoption of a child.

Voting Leave. We are given 1 hour of leave with pay to go vote. Simple.

Ok… Court Leave. This one was interesting to me because I am currently in the jury pool and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to serve. I wasn’t sure if I’d get paid. Well, turns out we do. If you are called for jury duty or as a witness of the court, you are granted leave with pay. It says you need to provide written documentation of the obligation, but we do get paid. So that’s cool. Now I kinda want to get on a jury. 🙂

Now here’s one for all those who have interest in serving the state in a different capacity. Legislative Leave. If you get elected to the legislature, you have to take time served in that position as leave without pay. Sounds a little odd, but you do get compensated for performing these duties by the Legislative Branch, and on the bright side, you can keep your job.

Ok, let’s talk about Educational Leave. This one is fascinating. I kinda doubt this ever happens, but you can actually get leave for up to 24 months to acquire job-related training or education. Of course, this is up to the Agency head. Believe it or not, the rules are open to it being either paid or unpaid. So… if you can find a very convincing reason to get some training and you have a super cool agency head, you could get paid to get that training.

Next is Administrative Leave. This is used for several things. First of all, an agency head may grant an employee administrative leave with pay to participate in meetings, seminars, hearings, examinations, and employee organization meetings. I don’t even know what some of those things are, but for any other purposes, you have to get approval from the Governor.

This is also the type of leave that the Governor gives for local celebrations, like Cheyenne Day, and if they need to shut things down because of weather, or anything else he/she deems necessary. One of the popular and regular administrative leave days is the day that is given for the Friday after Thanksgiving. That’s an example of administrative leave.

Ok…. Personal Leave. This one is at the agency head’s discretion. They can give us up to two regularly scheduled days of personal leave. So, 16 hours. There is a specific list of things that it can be given for.

Employee recognition programs;
Participating in department wellness initiatives;
Merit incentive programs
Team-based recognition – project completion
To volunteer
Family departing or returning from active duty military service; and
To attend military funerals.

Now some of these have to have prior approval from HRD, so look closer if you want to set something up. Also, volunteering has some rules associated with it, so check those.

There are a few prohibited activities. Personal Leave can not be granted for:

Birthdays
Early release for holidays, and
Undocumented performance

Next is Military Leave. I’m just going to send you to the Statute for that. All it says in our rules is that it shall be granted in accordance with Wyoming Statute 19-11-108.

Leave Without Pay. This type of leave is granted at the discretion of the agency head. This type of leave can basically be used for anything that the agency head decides warrants it. But there are some specific uses associated with it.

If you are injured on the job and receiving workers comp, you can use LWP.
An employee on military leave is entitled to LWP.
You can use LWP when all other leave has been exhausted, with permission, for medical reasons.

Please note that for everything except legislative leave, an employee has to use all accrued comp time, vacation or other available leave before leave without pay will be authorized.

The Governor may furlough employees due to lack of work or funding. An employee furloughed for lack of funding is on leave without pay.

Administrative Review Leave.

This is not typically good leave… but it’s not always bad. This is leave that you get placed on… for a maximum of thirty (30) days.

This traditionally happens when you have been charged with or are under investigation for a crime, or Allegations of misconduct have been made; or

You fail a fitness for duty evaluation; or, finally…

You need to be removed from the workplace because you are a witness or the complainant in an investigation.

And, finally, FMLA. FMLA is an episode unto itself, but suffice it to say, this federal act entitles eligible employees to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons with continuation of group health insurance coverage under the same terms and conditions as if the employee had not taken leave.

I will probably do an episode on that in the future, but I did put some information about it in the show notes. We did a very detailed video back in 2018 that you can watch if you really need to know.

Now I wasn’t going to mention Covid-19 in this episode, but there are a couple of new types of leave that have been created because of it. The Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act or EPSLA which provides up to 80 hours of paid sick leave for employees for six qualifying reasons related to COVID-19. And the Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act (EFMLEA), which expands the federal Family and Medical Leave Act to provide leave for employees who are unable to work, including work-from-home, as a result of having to care for a minor child due to a COVID-19 related closure of a school or childcare center.

If you need more info on those at this time, please contact your HR representative. Or if you just need general info, google it.

Holy smokes…. I’m so sorry this ended up so long. But, there are 16 types of leave… So much for Subject Matter MINUTE, eh? Well, thanks for hanging in there, and I’ll see you next time.

Subject Matter Minute, Episode #39 – LinkedIn Learning

You can also listen to an audio version.

Hello and welcome to another gritty episode of the subject matter minute. All right, I know the show is not gritty by any means, but sadly I actually have had to edit out a couple of things that I thought was funny, but others didn’t… you know? Speaking of that… once again we are walking on eggshells as state employees. There’s grim budgetary news. Because of this, this couldn’t be a better time to expand our skillset or strengthen our skill set. The State Library just recently signed a contract with LinkedIn learning that gives us access to their huge library of excellent courses. Some of you may have used it in the past, it was called lynda.com, but LinkedIn bought them out. They have a huge library of professionally produced training on a wide range of topics. Check this out.

When you sign in with your library card this is the page you will see if you want to see all the subjects just come up to library and hover over it okay and then you can go down each of these main subject areas to see all of the courses available and they have divided it up into topics software and learning paths I’ll go over that stuff more here in a bit but you can see we have a huge amount of courses available to us.

Let’s back up a second and show you how to get access to the LinkedIn library courses. You need a Wyoming library card to do this. In order to get your State library card to access all these courses and all this other
fabulous stuff the library has, you need to go to library.wyo.gov. There’s probably several ways to get there, but what I did was went to ‘using the library’ ‘for state employees,’ and then down to ‘get a library card.’ That opens a new tab. You fill this out. Because of COVID, right now, you will be emailed a library card number and password,and eventually, we’ll all get physical library cards once COVID- 19 is over.

Once you have your library card number and a password you’ll come to this page gowyld.net. There are probably several ways to get there again but I’m gonna go to ‘job and career support,’ and then you’ll see LinkedIn learning down here with lynda.com content. If you click on that it brings you to this login page. I’m gonna go ahead and put mine in and login. Now we’re back to that page I showed you before.

I’m gonna go into this a little bit more so first of all that you see at the top we have popular learning paths. Learning paths are really handy because they basically group a bunch of courses in certain topics, and they do it for you so you don’t have to search for them. Here’s a learning path called ‘become a manager,’ it has eight courses in it. ‘Become a project coordinator’ ten courses… these could be good learning paths for state employees. You can also click on ‘see all’ to see all the learning paths that they have put together. As you can see, there are a lot. In each section there are learning paths with many classes in them. You can see ‘to become a project manager’ has 17 hours worth of courseware in there. This is good stuff.

I want to show you here when you first come in new is selected in this row. These are the new courses. You can scroll through here see what they got. ‘Customer service,’ ‘financial wellness,’ ‘talent management,’ … good stuff for PMI. You can also sort it by ‘popular.’ A lot of ‘time management’ up at the top, Microsoft stuff… now I’ve been asked many times where people can get Microsoft training… this is gonna be great stuff for those folks. Then they have some recommended courses. Also ‘popular your organization.’ I’m not sure… that must sort eventually once more people have come in.

If you’re looking for soft skills, perhaps you go to business, and you look at ‘leadership,’ ‘management,’ ‘communication,’ ‘productivity.’ Let’s just go to productivity. Looks like they have weekly videos they make, and then, of course, a lot of the stuff that folks are looking for these days… setting limits on your smartphone, learning zoom. A lot of us are using zoom these days so that could be a good one, and I’m sure they have more than just the basics… they go into advanced modes. Self-motivation, reducing tension… So you can see the kind of things they have.

Now let’s go into a course. Let’s go into ‘learning zoom.’ I just want to show you how they’re set up. It’s very straightforward. It’s video based. I did come in here earlier and checked it out. You can see the ones that I’ve already watched because they show the little eye. Since I’ve already watched them, then you go to the next one. You can see the transcript down here, which is great because it shows you where they are in the words, and you can actually click on the words to skip forward to that spot. If you are watching this from the beginning to the end it’ll automatically go from video to video, otherwise you can skip around find something that you have a question about. ‘How do I record and review meetings,’ and just skip right to it.

As you can see this is set up really nicely and you will find that the video quality is quite amazing. These guys know what they’re doing and they’re professionals. Apparently, LinkedIn produces all of their own stuff in-house.

You can also make your own playlist. You can go through all their courses, find ones that you want to watch in the future, and add them to your playlist. Let’s just go into business analysis foundations. Now, I didn’t actually have to go into it to add it… I’ll go back and show you, but you can add it to your playlist by clicking right here. Let’s go back. You can also add it to your playlist by clicking the plus alongside any of the courses.

This is fairly new to me too. I just wanted to get this information out there so people can hit this right away. I did use lynda.com a while ago… years ago, so I’m somewhat familiar with it, but I’m gonna be diving in checking it out. I didn’t show you all the features, but it’s really straightforward and well-made, so get in there and check out the courses.

I’ve only really gone over LinkedIn learning in this episode, but I would be remiss to not mention the hundreds of other resources that the State Library has for us. Check this out.

This is the home page of gowyld.net. Here you’ll find all the topics and resources available to state of Wyoming employees. So these are all the subjects. You can get ebooks, audiobooks, magazines… so much stuff available to state of Wyoming employees. Let’s go back into job and career support since that’s what we’re talking about today. You have access to Learning Express Library, and here’s LinkedIn learning as well. Look over here, there are auto repair manuals. There is a section for learning a language… enunciator. There’s tests and Skills prep. These are all available to you for free.

Again, on the homepage you can see all the subject areas… so as you can see there are a ton of resources out there to help us expand our skillset, strengthen our skillset, or perhaps just to help us get through these trying times. I truly encourage you to get in there and check it out. I guarantee you will be impressed with the quality of the productions. Ok, that’s it for today… good luck to all of us during this (most recent) stressful time at the state. See you next time.

Subject Matter Minute, Episode #34 – Air Ambulance Coverage

You can also listen to an audio version.

Hello All! So, last month’s SMM was on COBRA. I think the general consensus from the feedback I got, was that all of us will have to work until we are Medicare eligible. Sad, but true.

Thanks for watching that episode and thanks for joining me today! If you didn’t watch that episode, or you’ve missed some others, I went ahead and posted a link to the SMM playlist in the show notes below the video. If you haven’t checked out the show notes before, I want to mention that you almost always have to click the “show more” button to actually see what’s in there. For some reason, YouTube gives very little space for it.

Alright. Today we are going to talk about the cost and/or our coverage of Air Ambulance service.

So, I started thinking about this, unfortunately, because a friend of ours was involved in a car accident that sent someone in a helicopter to Denver. We spoke with them and naturally began talking about car insurance and health insurance. Totally unrelated to this episode, but your car insurance is unlikely to cover much in a multiple injury and/or death type scenario. You might check out what your car insurance covers.

Anyway, we also spoke about the helicopter ride. Now interestingly, this is a bit timely, because both the legislature and the governor have also been talking about it. They are trying to create a new system to avoid the occasional huge charge that some have received after a medical flight.

Oh, by the way, when we talk about Air Ambulance, we are talking about both helicopters and airplanes. You can get a helicopter ride from the scene of an accident and either a plane or helicopter from the hospital to another hospital.

The price for this sort of service is all over the place. However, after speaking with Franz Fuchs of the Wyoming Department of Health, I have some numbers that are more pertinent for the State of Wyoming employee.

First of all, the claims for this sort of thing that EGI has dealt with average around 100 trips a year. They tend to be half plane and half helicopter with only about 10% of the flights being on the side of the road 9-1-1 calls. 90% are interfacility which can be by plane or helicopter. While either situation means you have been badly hurt, the flight from the scene type probably means you are worse off. Luckily, with only 10% being that type, there are only approximately 10 roadside flights a year. And this includes all the people that EGI covers.

The average that EGI paid for this sort of transfer (and this includes all the transfers… the 100 on average per year) was $33K in 2015 and went up to $36K by 2018. So EGI is getting a big bill.

Now, the average amount that a covered person paid… I keep saying “covered person” because EGI covers more than just State employees, there are some school districts and such…. Anyway, the average amount was just $250-$300. Franz pointed out that this number doesn’t really mean anything, however, as 70%-90% of folks paid close to $0. These were likely folks that had reached their maximum or covered their deductibles, ya know, different situations.
The actual maximum a person paid (that is covered by our insurance) in 2015 – 2017 was $3K, but there was one person in 2018 that was charged $10K. Honestly, we don’t actually know how much they ended up paying because the claims data doesn’t tell us. You can often negotiate that kind of stuff down.

So… after hearing this, it seems that state employees aren’t really the ones that the governor and the Legislature are talking about when they say that people are getting hit with huge bills. The bottom line is our insurance covers this sort of thing at least to 75%.

I’ve been asked to mention that Insurance companies have some coverage requirements for them to pay an air ambulance service, perhaps the most important of these is the one that says, “the service is medically reasonable and necessary.” So, in a situation, does the patient’s medical condition demand rapid and immediate air ambulance services? A broken leg probably does not warrant an air ambulance while bleeding inside the skull that warrants the medical intervention of a neurosurgeon might. Unfortunately, the patient rarely, if ever, has a choice or enough knowledge to make the call in this matter, so hopefully, the medical professionals are making the right decisions at the time. In this situation, it’s Cigna that makes this call after the fact… not EGI.

Now if you are in an accident that requires this sort of thing, you are obviously going to be dealing with a whole lot more than just a helicopter flight, but it is good to know that at least this piece is covered and won’t break the bank.

Also, if you do end up with a balance bill, I’ve been told that you should definitely do some haggling with the air ambulance company. They are often willing to accept a lot less than the bill if they can get it quickly or easily. I know that this seems weird, but it’s true.

I want to thank this month’s subject matter expert, Franz, of the Wyoming Department of Health for getting me the stats that have helped put our minds at ease. Thanks, Franz.

That’s it for today, check-in next month for another exciting episode of the Subject Matter Minute! See ya then!

Subject Matter Minute, Episode #31 – Maternity Leave?

If YouTube is blocked for you or your agency, you can scroll to the bottom of this post to view it from Google Drive. (I would prefer you view in YouTube, so I know how many people have watched)

You can also listen to an audio version.

Hello and welcome to another episode of that work show that you keep hoping will get better, but, well…. Doesn’t. Hehehe…

I want to start off by thanking the folks at the Treasurer’s office. The last episode was about “unclaimed property” and we sent a bunch of folks onto their system, and everything went smoothly! I received several emails from happy people who discovered that they had unclaimed property of their own! I think the record was $566! Can you believe it? What a payday! We also heard from a person who had one penny. I don’t think they felt the need to go through the process.I was so happy to receive emails from folks about scoring some free money. And I’m sorry if you didn’t 🙁

Oh, and on that… I’ve been told that it makes sense to check back occasionally. The Treasurer’s office is actively searching for your money, so you may be surprised down the road.

Alright… So this episode is for all you new parents and parents to be! But before I dive in, I need to thank my subject matter expert, Debbie Russi of A&I Agency HR. I peppered her with a whole bunch of questions and she nailed them all. Thanks Deb.

Today we are going to cover Maternity Leave. (music)

Or, more precisely, the fact that we have NO maternity leave at the state. But, instead of dwelling on that, I’m going to cover what you can do to spend some quality time with your tiny little ball of rapidly dividing cells.

(We are also talking about Paternity Leave. The laws are the same for both mom and dad)

So, with the state of wyoming, it boils down to using FMLA for this situation. The Family Medical Leave Act is a federal law that allows you to take time off for certain things without the danger of losing your job.

I’m not going to cover all the details of FMLA in this video. I just want to cover it as it relates to time off for a baby.

So first of all, you need to be eligible for FMLA. This means you need to have been employed for at least 12 months. And…. you must have worked 1250 hours in the preceding 12 month period.

Next, you need to let your supervisor and/or your HR person know. The rule is 30 days advance notice is the leave is foreseeable, which would typically be the case with a new baby or, otherwise, as soon as practicable.

Then there are some details that will be worked out with you, HR, your doctor and your supervisor. Naturally there is a bunch of paperwork that needs to be filled out. The forms will be similar, but probably slightly different depending on what agency you work for.

So, what does FMLA do. FMLA allows you to take 12 weeks of unpaid leave for a new baby, adoption, or foster care of a child. Yes, unpaid. However, with the state you are able to use your annual and sick leave during that 12 weeks. Concurrently, as they like to say. This allows you to get paid… if you have enough banked.

Now if you’ve been looking into this, you may have heard about intermittent leave. This is a situation where you take chunks of leave spread out over time. Well…. This is not automatically allowed for the birth of a child or adoption. However, if you have a job that could allow it, and a supervisor that is willing to work with you, you may be able to do it. Just understand that it is not available except by agreement.

So, what if you want to take more than 12 weeks? It is possible to take time off without pay, but that would have to be worked out with your director. You would also need to understand that if you fall below a certain amount of work hours per month, you will lose the state’s contribution to insurance. So…. please talk to your HR person about that.

Here’s a little something that seems wrong, but is what it is…. If you and your spouse both work for the state, you have to split the FMLA 12 weeks. It would be awesome for the kid if you could each take 12, but the rules are what they are at this time.

(This is a Department of Labor rule. Not a State rule)

So, even though we don’t have maternity leave, per se, it could be worse. Apparently the state doesn’t have to allow us to use our vacation and sick concurrently with the FMLA leave. It could be pretty brutal to have to take leave without pay at a time when there are typically a bunch of bills that you don’t normally have to pay.

So, that should help you out in figuring out how to stay home with your new kid. Again, I left out some details, so please talk to your HR person so they can fill in the blanks and show you how to fill out all the paperwork.

That’s it for today, please join me again next month for another episode of the Subject Matter Minute.

Subject Matter Minute, Episode #28 – Important Tidbits

You can also listen to an audio version.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Subject Matter Minute, I’m Matt Nagy, thanks for tuning in! That’s a funny expression, right? Tuning in… Do you remember when you actually had to “tune in” tv stations? The little knob around the channel knob?? Wow… that was a long time ago. 🙂

But, I digress…

Today’s episode is about Nothing! (nothing in particular graphic)

Today is going to be a break from the usual topic driven show. I thought it was time to do a bit of a wrap up of what we have done on the show as well as cover some odds and ends related the mechanics of finding the appropriate episode when you need it and other details of youtube, the blog, and more.

Hope that’s ok. If you couldn’t care less, then git! I won’t be offended.

First of all, before we get started with that… I wanted to see if I could find a couple fans of the show that I briefly met at the Norah Jones concert in mid July. A couple really friendly ladies that said they really like the show and that they were excited to meet me. Made me blush a little. The concert was about to start, so I immediately forgot your names. Very sorry about that. But, you had a friend take a photo, and I would really like a copy if that is at all possible, so please send me one! My email address is right here: matthew.nagy@wyo.gov. Please send me a copy… if you haven’t deleted it already, that is. 🙂

Ok… as far as recapping what we have done with the show… I think the show has been a success. I think we have covered topics that are important to us all, generally without too many mistakes? I don’t really get any haters, and for that I thank you all. While I fancy myself as someone who can handle criticism, I’m not sure about the kind you often see on youtube. So, thanks for being such wonderfully nice folks.

This is a good time to show you how you can go back to see what we have covered. Perhaps the easiest way, short of having a bookmark directly to the playlist, is to simply search for “subject matter minute” within youtube. That will allow you to find the playlist easily.

This is what a playlist looks like. If you click on it, it will open the very first video. The one that started it all. This was on longevity pay, a benefit that I didn’t even know existed. One that I was benefitting from at that time already. Well, once you are here, you can scroll through all of the episodes over here.

It seems that the most popular episode to date is the Full Benefit Package episode. Episode 12. I’ve actually had folks from out of state that were considering state employment thank me for having that video.

One final thing on YouTube…. If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to my channel by clicking the big red “subscribe” button. This will allow you to see new videos within your own channel, in the subscription area. If you have notifications turned on, it will also alert you that way. You do that by going into Manage from the Subscriptions area. Then click the little bell.

Ok, I’ve shown you the playlist, did you even know that there is both a written blog and an audio version? I know that I put those links in the emails that go out, but I’m sure a ton of people just click on the video without reading my lame attempts at humor. Right?

So, the blog is here: http://wyomingtraining.com/subject-matter-minute-blog/

You will find both all of the episodes in written form, and all of them in audio form. You can see the audio files along the right hand side.

Ok? So, if you have problems with YouTube, or your internet connection or you simply prefer to read, you can go here. I will put this link is in the show notes below the video. One final thing on the blog, if you or someone you know is blocked from YouTube, you can scroll to the bottom of each written blog and watch the video from Google drive.

We’ve had 28 episodes at this point… really 27, because one was a bloopers show, but that’s a lot of topics! Last month I covered a topic that one of you guys suggested, and I will be doing that next month too. I would love to hear from you about topics you think I should cover. All that I ask is that the topics are relevant to the entire state. Not just your agency.

Ok, I think that is enough odds and ends for today. Hopefully I didn’t put you to sleep? Well, that’s the beauty of content delivered this way… you can shut me up by shutting me off!

Oh! Before I go… you may have noticed the new digs? I dug myself out of the basement and I now have a much better view, as well as better lighting, a more stable temperature. I was always a bit cold in the basement. I hope this works for ya. I’m not a very creative decorator, so …. This will have to do.

Thanks for joining me on the Subject Matter Minute!

Subject Matter Minute, Episode #27 – Assigning Beneficiaries

You can also listen to an audio version.

Hello, and welcome to yet again, another episode of your favorite video blog…… the subject matter minute. If you got here by accident, I’m sorry. 🙂

So, this video is coming out a little late. I just got back from Japan. Yeah, really! My sister is a Navy Nurse and has been stationed there for the usual 2 years. We decided we’d better take our one chance to see Japan while we still have a place to stay and an awesome tour guide. We had a great time! We ate a lot of fabulous food, did some touristy crafty things, stayed at a military “resort” for a couple days, and put in some good beach/ocean time. I even got to experience something new on the way home. We actually flew out of LA because it cost so much to go out of Denver, and on the way back stayed in Las Vegas. Well, we got to experience our first earthquake! It was weird, exciting and kinda fun. Luckily is was small there. Although it did make the lights sway and then afterwards gave us some vertigo.

Before I get started on this months subject, I want to thank last episode’s subject matter experts… Jared Hanson and Brenda Kelly of HRD. The subject was using the PMI software between phases, if you missed it. So go back and catch that episode. And, thanks Brenda and Jared!

The Subject matter experts for this episode are Polly Scott of the Wyoming Retirement System and Pam Unruh of Employees Group Insurance. I also want to thank Mitzi, one of our fabulous HR coordinators out in the state for the topic suggestion!

Today I want to talk about the importance of assigning a beneficiary.

There are potentially 4 things that state of wyoming employees must choose a beneficiary for… They are Life Insurance through Employees Group Insurance… and your pension, the 457 plan, and Prudential life insurance through the Wyoming Retirement System. These each need different beneficiary designations. They don’t have to be different people…. They just each need to be assigned separately.

You are automatically enrolled in your pension, and the 457 plan. The state pays for the life insurance that you can get through EGI, but you have to elect it. (so definitely do that… it’s free) And finally, the Prudential Life insurance through the WRS is also a voluntary program. So, you pay for it and don’t have to sign up for it.

So…. what happens if you don’t select a beneficiary for these things??

When electing life insurance or changing your beneficiary through EGI, you can use paper or the online portal. When using the portal, if you elect life insurance, the system will require that you add a beneficiary. If you use paper, it doesn’t…

So…If an employee that has elected life insurance through EGI does not elect a beneficiary or the designated beneficiary is also deceased, benefits will be paid first, to your spouse, then your children, then your parents, then your brothers and sisters, and finally your estate. If it’s going to more than one person… like you have 3 siblings, then the money will be distributed equally among them.

One thing you need to be aware of… if you name a minor as your beneficiary, benefits can’t be paid to them. A guardian would have to be court ordered and the benefit would be payable to the guardian.

Ok, so that seems pretty standard, right? Well, when you name your beneficiary, you put in their name…. Not relationship. So, if you put down your wife or husband and then you get divorced, the money will still go to them. I’m guessing that not a lot of divorced people want their $50,000 life insurance policy going to their ex. Just a guess. Might make a few people roll over in their graves! So keep that in mind!

The issue of people not selecting beneficiaries has grown since we went to online systems and also automatic enrollment. People’s pension accounts and 457 accounts are set up automatically, but they still need to log into their online account for each and add the beneficiary information.

Something to note on the pension, if you elect more than one primary beneficiary on your pension then the beneficiaries won’t have the choice of a lifetime monthly benefit and will have to take a lump sum refund. Consider this carefully, and you can always add contingent beneficiaries who take the place if the primary beneficiary is deceased. If you should die in-service without a beneficiary, benefits would be paid to the estate. There isn’t an order precedence for pension benefits. That is why it is so important to establish beneficiary(ies), because going to the estate could complicate matters, or make things work out differently than you had planned.

The 457 Plan does have an order of precedence, but it is still important to designate a beneficiary because there would be an additional waiting period if the order of precedence is used. So if you don’t have a beneficiary selected, the money would first go to your estate, then your spouse, then a child or children and finally to a parent.

Finally, the Prudential life insurance through WRS has an order of precedence that goes

surviving spouse
all surviving children
all surviving parents
all surviving siblings
estate

Ok, I’m going to quickly show you where and how to change your beneficiaries. 3 of them can be done online. It’s simple. Prudential Life Insurance can be changed by calling 800-525-8056 and requesting a form.

First, I’m going to show you how to add or change your beneficiary in the life insurance that we get through EGI. First of all, go to A&I’s website and come up here to divisions. Click on Human Resources or the arrow next to it, then click on group insurance.

Now you’ll be on EGI’s site. Here’s the benefit portal go ahead and click on that. If you’d like there’s a couple videos you can watch: “how to register” and “using the portal for open enrollment changes,” but here is the portal access down at the bottom.

That’ll open up a new window and you’ll have to log in. It gives you more choices typically, but because I logged in with with Google that’s what it’s giving me and that’s kind of a familiar login. It will give you an opportunity to pick your gmail account and then you’d be in. So, as you can see, I’m in. This is the page that shows up. Here is your life insurance beneficiary.

Very simple. You can see I have my wife as the primary and then I have my two kids as contingent; they would be 50% and 50% should it go to them. All you do is click on update beneficiaries, you can see everyone that’s listed.

Here you can edit or you can add. If you edit someone you go in you change the name, blah blah blah, save. I’m gonna cancel out. If you want to add go ahead and add one. You would put primary or contingent, relationship percentage, save it. I’m gonna cancel out of that. After you change something you need to click here, and then save. But I’m not gonna do any of that because I’m already good here.

That’s the employees group insurance life insurance beneficiary add or change.

Now I’m gonna show you how to add or change beneficiaries for your pension through the Wyoming Retirement System. First, go to members, and then online pension account, come down to change your beneficiary.

This opens up a new window. You’ll need to login, and it takes you right there. You can see right now I have a primary beneficiary as my wife. I have not added my kids… I think it’s mainly because I could not remember their social security numbers, but all you would do is update the information.

If I wanted to add them as contingent beneficiaries I would create new, add one daughter, and then I would create new and do another one.

But since I’m not adding them today, since I still don’t remember their social security numbers, I will just cancel out of that. Then you click continue when you’re done.

This time we’re going to change our beneficiaries in the 457 deferred comp account. In order to do this, come on over here to login click on that. Click on the 457 plan login. Login to it.

Click on account, and then right over here under account overview is beneficiaries, or down here beneficiaries.

You can go to add/edit down here, and as you can see my wife is my primary beneficiary and one of my daughter’s is a contingent beneficiary. If you wanted to add, you would just add. If you wanted to edit, you could edit.

I’m gonna cancel. If you add, you would choose the type, contingent or primary, and save it. I’m gonna cancel out of that.

That’s all there is to changing or adding your 457 beneficiary.

There might be a few of you out there that just really don’t give a rip where your money goes after you die. After all, your dead. But I’m guessing that most do care. Please get in the systems and add your beneficiaries if you haven’t, and then check them somewhat regularly to make sure they are still good. Especially if you have changes in your family.

Well, it’s not a lot of fun to talk about things that involve our deaths, but we are all gonna go. So get your ducks in a row. 🙂

That’s it for this month’s subject matter minute. Please join me next month for what “might” be a more uplifting topic. Actually, I’m not sure what it’s going to be yet… but we’ll see you then.

Subject Matter Minute, Episode #25 – Cigna Wellness Initiatives

You can also listen to an audio version.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Subject Matter Minute. I’m Matt Nagy, thanks for joining me! Before we get started with today’s topic that includes how you can possibly make some cashola, I want to thank last month’s subject matter expert, Casey Baxter of Surplus Property. Thanks for your help, Casey.

It’s a coincidence, but this episode happens to be on preventative care the day after I had a bit of preventative care done on myself. I had a mole removed yesterday. Good times…Ya know… everyone blames the sun for this sort of thing…. Personally, I blame the moles. It’s not the sun’s fault that I’m covered in moles. So anyways, it seemed like a good preventative measure to get this removed, and we will find out next week, if everything is cool. I’m not worried and the doctor didn’t seem too worried. So…. speaking of health care, and preventative health care….

We all hear it every day… our healthcare system is in shambles… it’s broken… right? Well, while the government fails to figure this out, some people, organizations, and even insurance companies, are trying to figure out ways to, at least, slow the rise in costs.

There is one proven way to lower costs, and it just happens to have the side effect of helping people as well. And in this case, you might even win some money. Today I’m going to talk about Cigna and their Wellness Initiatives.

So… if you’ve been watching the show for a while, you know that I did one on the free blood chem screening through Wyoming Health Fairs. If you need to check it out, that was episode #15, and I’ve linked to it in the show notes. The chem screening is a great deal and something everyone should be doing. Well there’s more that you can do for your health that is free.

Did you know that you can go to the doctor once a year for a free well visit? You can also get free coaching from Cigna professionals on all sorts of health related topics, such as losing weight, quitting tobacco, managing stress and even dealing with chronic diseases. I’m going to go deeper into that in another episode. Today I want to talk about their current wellness initiative. Having said that, keep in mind that they do have ongoing wellness initiatives. I’m going to talk about the current one, but if you are watching this video far in the future, keep your eyes open for the emails that go out about every other month.

I chatted with my friend Alice Burron of Cigna, and she gave me the lowdown on the current wellness initiative. There are 3 steps (and possibly several rewards!)

Get your free blood chem screening through Wyoming Health Fairs
Take the Cigna Health Assessment online
Go to your in-network Dr. and get a free well visit.

You should probably do these things just because, but Alice has been given the power to incentivize it.

If you go to an in-network Dr. to get your free 100% covered annual wellness visit by Nov. 30, you will get entered into a drawing for one of 100 $200 gift cards. And if you take the health assessment before July 31, you are eligible to win one of 100 $50 gift cards. And, they just wrapped up a Walkingspree challenge and 50 of those who participated and earned badges won $50. There will be one more of those challenges this year. There is no doubt that this is real. I won $50 last year. 🙂 Now that I think about it… telling you guys about this has probably reduced my chances of winning. Dang… oh well… it’s good for everyone, right? I mean exercise is good and so is cash. 🙂

A couple items I need to mention about the wellness Doctor visit. When you make the appointment you need to specify that it is for the 100% well visit / annual checkup. Also, if you had your well visit anytime in 2019 before Nov. 30, you are eligible for the drawing. That means starting 1/1 of this year, any well visit from that point on is counted. Some of you already had your visit without knowing about this incentive, but don’t worry, you will be automatically included. And speaking of that, there is no paperwork related to the incentive. It’s all captured electronically, so you don’t have to turn in a claim form for the Dr. visit, or anything for the health assessment, either.

This is easy stuff that you can do for free, that can possibly win you some money; that is the right thing to do for your health, and could even slow down the rise in health insurance costs.

So, get involved in the cigna wellness initiative. And when you do, be on the lookout for an email saying you are a winner from Cigna, Walkingspree, or Tango gift cards!

If you have any questions, you can call the Cigna Customer Service number at 800.685.1060. Or email Alice at Alice.Burron@cigna.com. You can also find that number and email address down below in the show notes. There is also some brochures and information in the show notes, so be sure to take a look.

Alright, that’s it for this month. I’ll see you next time on the Subject Matter Minute.

Subject Matter Minute, Episode #21 – Public Employee Pension Plan, Part 2

You can also listen to an audio version.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Subject Matter Minute, I’m Matt Nagy. This is part 2 of a two-parter on our pension. If you missed it, the last episode was Episode #20, and it covers a ton of information about the pension… the first half of this two-part series. This one’s gonna be a little bit long, just like last time… I apologize up front, and I’ll save that little tidbit about my daughter for next time. 🙂

We’re gonna jump right in. As I said, please go back and watch the first episode, Episode #20, on your pension. In that, we covered a bunch of details… we covered what a pension is, how much comes out of your check, when you become vested, how you accumulate service credits, when you can retire, how much you can expect to get, and what you can do if you leave employment before you retire.

In part 2 we’re going to cover what happens to your pension if you die before retirement, beneficiaries, applying for retirement, retirement payments, returning to work after retirement, and a few other small items of interest.

Who knew there was so much involved in a pension! Maybe some of you guys who are getting close or are dealing with it knew, but the rest of us probably didn’t… I know I certainly didn’t.

First of all, number one thing when you first get your job with the state… make sure you go in log into your account and designate a beneficiary. This person will get your benefits if you die.

So if you die before retirement, whether or not you’re vested makes a difference in what your beneficiary will get, or the choices that they would have. If you’re not vested at the time of your death – you know less than 48 months of service – then your beneficiary will get a lump sum of twice the amount in your account. Now keep in mind we’re talking about the public employee pension plan. This is a bit different in the other ones like the public safety plans, but all of this is simply for the majority of us in the public employee pension plan.

If you are vested at the time of your death your beneficiary can either take a lump sum or take a lifetime monthly benefit. Basically what you would have gotten… sorry. A beneficiary must be at retirement age to receive the lifetime benefit.

I’m going to apologize up front… I will be referencing my notes because this is a lot of information, and while I know it, it’s a little bit hard to just throw out there… so forgive me for that.

As I was saying, if you were vested at the time of your death, your beneficiary can either elect a lump sum or a lifetime monthly benefit. Any beneficiary must be at retirement age to receive the lifetime benefit. A spousal beneficiary can wait before they start taking the benefits, but only till the member, you, would have been 70 and a half years old.

A non spousal beneficiary who is not of retirement age at the time of your death would only be eligible for the lump sum. There’s a lot of specific timing requirements for non spouse beneficiaries, so if that’s what’s going on and you need to know about that, please contact WRS.

There are other scenarios, such as people with more than one beneficiary, or if an entity is your beneficiary (like a trust). If if you need to know more about that go ahead and contact WRS on that as well.

One little interesting tidbit… you can change your beneficiary anytime pre-retirement, but your spouse has a say… basically your spouse’s consent is required. I thought that was pretty interesting.

So that’s if you die before you reach retirement age. We’re gonna talk about what happens when you die after you reach your retirement age in just a minute, but first let’s talk about applying for retirement. First of all you’ve got to choose a retirement date, obviously. If you want to retire as soon as you’re eligible, keep your birth date in mind because you need to be 60 under tier 1, or 65 under tier 2, or meet the rule of 85. I went over that in the first half of your pension, so check out that video… Episode #20. You apply for your benefits online and you need to log into your account on or shortly before your last working day.

This is a really good time to contact Wyoming Retirement System and talk to them about it because it’s a process and there’s some things you need to fully understand. These options I’m going to talk about in a minute… the choices you make cannot be undone. You need to pick between eight benefit payout options. Each one has a slightly different payout amount related to who gets what and how much. They’re all a little different. I’m gonna briefly cover each. If you need to know more information than I’m giving you, WRS has a fabulous video. There’s a link down below… watch it, you’ll get more information on each one.

Option 1 – single lifetime benefit with beneficiary

This is a lifetime benefit for you alone. When you die, your beneficiary gets a lump sum of any remaining balance in your account. There’s something to keep in mind here… typically, retirees burn through the money in their account within three to five years, so really that doesn’t leave much for a beneficiary.

Option 2 – 100% joint and survivor benefit

This is the most straightforward one for members with spouses, probably the one that’s used the most. It’s a lifetime benefit for you, and then a hundred percent lifetime benefit for your spouse should you die.

Option 2 P – 100% joint and survivor benefit with a pop up provision

It’s the same as option two, you have a lifetime benefit and then your beneficiary gets a hundred percent, but this one has a pop up in that if your beneficiary dies before you, then you pop up to option 1. The reason that’s important is that option 1 typically pays out more per month.

Option 3 – 50% joint and survivor benefit

You can probably start to figure these out, right? It’s a lifetime benefit for you and a 50% lifetime benefit for your beneficiary upon your death.

Option 3p – 50% joint survivor benefit with a pop up provision

Exactly the same as the option 3, but should your beneficiary die before you, you pop up to option 1.

Option 4 – 10-year certain benefit

A lifetime benefit for you, but if you die before 10 years of benefits, your beneficiary will only get the benefit to the end of that 10 years. You’re limiting your beneficiary to a 10-year period.

Option 4b – 20-year certain benefit

Same deal, but your beneficiary has up to 20 years, if you should die, to get the benefits.

I know I’m going fast but this is gonna be a long episode!

Option 5 – Single lifetime benefit without beneficiary

It’s exactly that… it’s a lifetime benefit you, and there’s no beneficiary involved. So if you’re single, there’s no one to leave money to, this is the one to take… you’ll get the highest payout per month.

We’re gonna complicate this further… you can also add what’s called a self-funded COLA. COLA stands for cost of living adjustment. This allows you to have your pension payments go up every year by a certain percentage. (cost-of-living) You can choose between one, two, and three percent. Initially, you have a lower payout per month, but then after a two-year waiting period, your pension goes up every year by the percentage you choose. So, I see this as something for people who think that they’re gonna be retired for a while, who expect to live a long time, perhaps have good longevity genes in their family. I think it’s a good option…

A few little tidbits… you’ll get your retirement payments the month following your termination. (Actually it can be up to 2 months) You can have your money direct deposited into your bank. And something to remember is that your monthly benefit is reported the IRS as income, so you’re gonna need to pay taxes if they’re due.

The next section in the handbook goes over the rehired retiree rule. Very hard to say. There are a lot of details to it, but one major point is that if you are truly retired, and then you come back to a job that’s in the same pension plan, you’re gonna have to choose whether or not to keep getting your pension while you’re a state employee, or stopping the pension and adding to your credits. If you keep getting your pension you won’t get any more credits. If you stop getting your pension then you’ll just add on years of service to what you had previously.

Feel free to contact WRS on this and/or read through the handbook for more information. I have a little funny down below… there’s a link to a video. We did aN HR conference this year, and Doug McGee from WYDOT did a little bit on the rehired retiree. Watch it if you want to get a good laugh about the rehired retiree.

Next, the hand book covers disability. If you become incapacitated to the point where you can’t perform your duties, you may be eligible for a disability retirement. To be eligible, you must have three things apply. You must be disabled and apply for disability while you’re a contributing member of the WRS. AND after you’ve had ten or more years of service. AND before age sixty in Tier 1 or before age sixty-five in Tier 2. If you have all of those things then you are eligible for a disability retirement. (actually you are eligible to APPLY for disability. WRS still has to make sure you are eligible)

There’s some differences, so you’re gonna need to contact WRS, obviously.

I feel like I’m talking really fast and maybe even breathing hard from it. I’m gonna quit there, okay? There are a few other topics of interest in the handbook that you can check out. They talk about military deployment, divorce, life insurance, dispute resolution, and more, but I think we’ve covered all the important aspects, you know the meat of the WRS system.

Hopefully these two videos give you what you need… I still suggest you talk to WRS if you’re getting close, but you know, this is a nice review at any point to refresh. All right I’m gonna let you go, I’m gonna see you next time on the Subject Matter Minute!

Subject Matter Minute, Episode #20 – Public Employee Pension Plan, Part 1

You can also listen to an audio version.

Hello and welcome to the Subject Matter Minute, I’m Matt Nagy, thanks for joining me.

Today I am gonna cut right to the chase, because we have a lot of information to cover. I’m not gonna talk about my mullet or my teenagers, I’m just gonna get right to it. Today I want to talk about your retirement, or the public employee pension plan.

The public employee pension plan… I hope I didn’t pop that too much in your ears… or otherwise known as your retirement with the state. First of all, it’s the largest pension plan administered by Wyoming Retirement System. They also administer seven others for other types of employees. You can see them here on this list.

Today we’re going to talk about the one that covers most of us. In case you didn’t know, the pension plan is the mandatory retirement that you get with the state. There’s a ton of great information on the Wyoming Retirement System website. I have some links down below, be sure to click through them. You’ll get some more information in addition to what we talk about today.

The beautiful thing about our pension plan is that you can’t outlive your benefits. We’re putting in a portion of our income monthly, but even when that runs out you will still get a monthly payment for the rest of your life. There’s another name for it… it’s called a defined benefit plan, and that’s because it’s based on a formula and not the contributions. The formula is based on your age, service credits, or years of service, and highest average salary.

A lot of people tend to focus on the amount in the account, and that’s kind of natural because, with the 457k or just a investment account, an IRA, that’s the money that you’re gonna be using for retirement, but in the case of a pension, the only reason you would need to focus on that is if you leave the state and cash out your account or if you die before retirement.

Should you die before retirement, your beneficiary is entitled to either your pension as you would have gotten it, or a lump sum, so it’s very important that you keep your beneficiary information up to date.

There are over 450 employers in the state who use this same plan, so if you were to leave the state and work for another one of those employers, your pension travels with you… you can just continue on.

Things are a bit different for UW and Community College employees. When they first become employees they need to choose between two retirement entities… the Wyoming Retirement System or TIAA. Once they make that choice, they have to stick with it forever, or at least until they terminate employment.

Otherwise, getting this ball rolling is easy. Your employer signs you up and sets up the monthly contributions.

The contributions you do as an employee contribute to the pension as does the state. Basically the state and the employee pay a percentage of the employee’s income. Right now, this year, the total employee percentage is 8.5 percent and the total employer is 8.62. However, I’m not sure why they even list it like this because in our case the employer actually pays 5.75 percent of our percentage. So really you’re paying 2.93 percent of your salary towards the pension.

You can see they’ve got it scheduled to go up, but even by 2021 it’s only going to be 3.68 percent that we are contributing. The state is covering the rest… so not bad, not bad at all.

You qualify for a lifetime benefit once you’re vested and reach retirement age. You need 48 service credits to be vested. Usually this means 48 months. It’s different depending on how many hours a month you work. Most state employees are full-time and are gonna get a month of service for every month they work. If you’re a part-time or seasonal it’s different. If you work 86 or more hours in a month you receive one month of service credit. If you work 40 to 85 hours you get a half service credit, and if you work 1 to 39 hours in a month you get a quarter service credit. So that’s how you figure that out. Once you get 48 service credits, you are vested, which means that even if you quit state employment, you can eventually get your pension benefits when you retire… when you reach that age.

When can you retire and start collecting? Currently there’s two different scenarios… it depends on when you are hired. Currently we have two tiers… they call them tiers… if you were hired before September 1st 2012 you are in tier one. If you were hired on or after September 1st 2012 you’re in tier two. Tier one folks get to retire at age sixty and tier two folks have to wait until they’re 65, or both of them, in either tier, can retire if you reach the rule of 85.

So I got hosed… I feel like I got hosed… I literally became an employee two months after the change to tier 2. Tier 1 folks get to retire at age 60 and they have a higher multiplier percentage… you’ll see what I mean in a minute, than tier two. Us poor folks in tier 2 have to wait until 65, and it’s less a percentage of our max income. Anyways, I missed it by 2 months… yeah.

You’ve probably heard of the rule of eighty five. Under the rule of eighty-five, you qualify for retirement benefits if your years of service and your age equal eighty-five or more. Stop doing math… do that after the show, okay? Keep watching. 🙂

So how much money can you expect to receive when you retire? Well, simply put, the equation is this. You have a multiplier (like I mentioned it’s different for tier 1 and tier 2) times the years of service, times your average monthly salary.

(multiplier) X (years of service) X (highest average salary)

So let’s do a quickie here, just do some quick math. Let’s say your top salary is $4,000 a month, you’ve worked for the state for 20 years, and your tier two. I’m gonna do tier two because it’s a little more simple. So that’s

$4000 X 20 X 0.02 = $1600

Tier two multiplier is 2%. So that means that if that’s my highest average salary when I retire, I’m gonna be making $1600 a month. Not too shabby.

Or you can go to the WRS site and they have a calculator on there. Here you can play around with the numbers. You can change your age at retirement, your years of service, your highest average salary, and kind of play around with the numbers to see what would work best for you.

You can also log in and do an estimate within that area, but the problem with that is that it says that your highest average salary is your current salary. At at the current rate of raises at the state, that might be the case, especially if you’re getting close, but hopefully at least us that can’t retire for a while… hopefully our highest average salary will be more than that?

So the best scenario is to use that calculator that we just showed you.

What are your options when you leave employment with the state? So you can keep your pension… you can leave it with the state, or you can take a lump sum… you can cash out. If you leave it with the state, you will have the same same scenario when you retire… you will get a lifetime benefit… if you’re vested. There’s a lot of things to consider when you’re doing this. WRS has a whole bunch of information on this. Here is a brochure that talks about the questions you should ask yourself. Check that out if you’re getting close, and you’re trying to decide what to do.

If you want to leave your job and take a refund you would get your contributions plus interest… not the state’s contributions.

You also have some time to think about it. You do not have to make this decision right away, so take your time, read up on the choices, and make a good decision.

Like I mentioned, there are a ton of employers out there who also use this pension plan, so if you move to one of them, or leave the state and come back to the state, and did not cash out your pension, then it will continue on where you left off.

I think that’s enough for today! That’s a lot of information. Like I mentioned, we’re gonna have a round two with more information so be sure to tune in next month.

Today I covered what a pension is, how much comes out of your check, when you become vested, how you accumulate service credits, when you can when you can retire, how much you can expect to get via the formula, and what you can do if you leave employment.

Stay tuned next month for information on what happens if you die before you retire, beneficiaries, applying for retirement, retirement payments, and more. That’ll do it for the Subject Matter Minute this month, thanks for joining me and I’ll see you next time.

Subject Matter Minute, Episode #19 – Open Enrollment

You can also listen to an audio version.

Hello and welcome to a very special episode of the subject matter minute. This is the “episode after the crash.” Just last week, or maybe it was the week before, my hard drive crashed… kind of. For those of you in the know, this was actually a RAID, so in theory… it’s got six hard drives in it, and if one of them dies, it can recover all the information when you put a new hard drive in there, and rebuilds it, and all that jazz. Well, it acts like it rebuilt it, but I can’t get the hard drive to mount. In other words, show up on my computer. So I can’t access all my files, which means that my original projects are on there, and all the little fancy graphics that I worked on. Granted, it’s probably about time I rebrand my show, but I wasn’t quite ready for it this month. So this show will be a little bit dumbed down. Still gonna have some amazing content, but you won’t see the usual, or at least some of the usual pomp and circumstance. Maybe I’ll be able to pull some of it, I don’t know. In any case, a little bit harder for me this episode, but hopefully I’ll get it all rescued by next time or it’ll be a whole new show with different graphics because I’ll have to rebuild it. Anyways, I’m gonna be welcoming you again when I start the actual show… thanks for joining me.

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Hello and welcome to another episode of the subject matter minute. If this is the first time you’ve tuned in, my name is Matt Nagy and I’m the e-learning coordinator for Human Resources Division. Now generally on the show we cover state benefits. So over time I’ve become curious what you guys think of them. So today I have created a tiny little survey that I would love for you guys to fill out. Basically, I want to find out your general feeling about our benefit package, and I also want to know which benefit you think is the best. The link is down below… just a little bit of interaction in the show here, if you wouldn’t mind. Go on down there click on that and it’s gonna take maybe 20 seconds of your life to fill it out for me. It is anonymous, so I won’t know who hates the benefits and who doesn’t.

Before I get started with this topic I want to thank last month’s subject matter expert who was, of course, Employees’ Group Insurance. And that leads me right into thanking them again for being this month’s subject matter expert. Like usual, they’re helping me out all the time.

Last month was long-term care insurance. If you didn’t see it, check it out. This month’s topic is something that you hear about every year about this time of the year. I think sometimes it goes in one ear and out the other… kind of depends on your situation at the time. Today let’s talk about open enrollment.

Open enrollment is simply a set amount of time that you have to add, drop, or change your benefits. Specifically the time period is October 1st through November 30th. If you try to make changes after November 30th you will not be able to, you need to do it during open enrollment.

There are three groupings that you need to consider during open enrollment. One are the guaranteed things to either add or drop. These include health insurance and preventive dental. Next, there’s a group of things that have rules or time periods associated with them, and those time periods need to be up before you can make changes. And then the third group are the things you need to consider every year… basically you need to sign up for them every year.

The guaranteed benefits, like I mentioned, are health insurance and preventive dental. You can add those every year during this period. You can also change your health insurance deductible amount, and you can add or drop dependents. Something you need to know is if you’re going to add dependents, you need to have supporting documents such as birth certificate or marriage certificate.

There are two benefits that have waiting periods… these are optional dental and vision. With optional dental, if you did not sign up when you became a new employee or if you dropped it along the way at some point, there’s a three-year waiting period before you can enroll again. Same with vision… if you didn’t sign up as a new employee or if you dropped it along the way, with vision there’s a two-year waiting period. Another side on vision is when you do enroll, you have to be enrolled for two years. You can’t drop it that next year.

Now let’s talk about the benefits you need to consider every year as far as enrollment goes. These are the flexible benefits, which includes the medical reimbursement account and your day care reimbursement. You have to enroll in those every year during open enrollment. This makes sense because you have to decide how much money you want taken out of your check for both of those items.

There’s one more item with flexible benefits. During this period you can also change your tax election to pre-tax or post tax. If I’m making no sense to you as far as flexible benefits goes, EGI has a video that you can go check out talking about them, explaining everything that I was just talking about and more. The link’s down below in the show notes.

The nice thing these days is that you can make all these changes in the egi portal. I have a link to it down below in the show notes and you can also go to their web page to find it. So get in the portal, make your changes… at least see where you’re at with your benefits. It’s very handy.

Alright I think that’ll do it for today thanks for tuning into the subject matter minute and I’ll see you next month!