Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Retiree Health: Communication Flashback


City Councilman Don Vardeman, himself a city retiree, asked about providing wellness incentives to city retirees.  Human Resources Lisa Marley gave several excuses as to why the city has not offered discounts to Community Health Club to retirees.  One of those is communication:

Councilman Vardeman:  How do you get that information out to them?

Human Resources Director Marley:  If they come into the clinic discount cards are present for them to pick up and use.  We don't have a database to contact our retirees at this point.  We've been working to establish that, but not all retirees have e-mail addresses.  We don't have a real good method of getting that word out.
Councilman Vardeman:  Personally, as a retiree, I didn't realize I could even use the clinic. 
Flashback to summer 2011 when clinic use and retiree communication was the hot topic.  Note the political speech and commitment to develop a system 

Marley:  At no time did I conclude that retirees were not informed of this change.

Marley: Human Resources does not have a master list of emails for retirees, neither does it have an accurate listing of mailing addresses for retirees.  Any mass mailings to retirees result in one-third being returned for bad addresses.  I have spoken this week to an employee who is going to approach the Retiree Association to either get a complete list of emails or identify someone who can be the contact with HR for these types of notices in the future.

Over thirty months later and little has changed, except the number of retirees covered by the city.  That keeps dropping.  In 2011 the city provided coverage for 276 early retirees.  It expects to cover 215 in the current year, a decline of 60 people or 22%.  How many will be left when the communication system is finally developed?

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