Annual Benefit Guide and Membership Card

Look for a copy of the new and improved CSEA Annual Member Benefits Guide and your membership card in your mailbox at home during the first week of October. This popular guide outlines the many benefits and discounts you receive for being a CSEA member, bringing you value in membership. This year, the guide and card are in an envelope that looks like this:

Revised Health Benefits Matrix

From Kate Lane, Assistant Superintendent, Business Services:


Greetings all,

As you all know, the cap for health benefits increased by $100 to $1,105 effective October 1, 2018 in alignment with open enrollment and new benefit rates. The health benefits cap is traditionally applied to Dental, Vision and Life first with the remainder applied to medical benefits.

While updating payroll for the new rates we discovered an error in the CSEA unit #327 health benefits matrix (members in the blue unit only, exclusive of Walker Creek) that was previously sent out in the open enrollment packets, and wanted to be sure you have the correct matrix. I learned that we made a similar error on last year’s matrix and we have therefore developed a new internal control to have greater assurance we can prevent future errors.

The good news is that the vision plan (VSP) premium is lower, listed at $17.02 on the attached revised matrix rather than $19.25 per the original version distributed earlier.  The total monthly cap remains unchanged, but the distribution of the cap is changed as follows:

Total monthly cap = $1,105.00
Health insurance = $961.05 (+$2.23)
Dental/Life/Vision = $143.95 (-$2.23)

This change will effectively lower the dollar amounts in the “Employee Pays” column by $2.23 for all medical plans.
This change does not affect the Walker Creek CSEA unit #327 health benefits matrix, that remains unchanged.

No action is required for employees, unless you would like to make changes to your medical plan selection. If so, you will need to submit your plan change form to Personnel no later than September 28, 2018 by 5 pm.

If you have questions about the matrix, you can contact Michael Ghebregziabher at 415.499.5880.  If you have questions about benefits enrollment, you can contact the Personnel Department at 415.499.4854.

Thank you.

Click HERE for the Matrix.

Important Notice and 9/19 Chapter Meeting Agenda

From Vicki Ascher, Chapter 327 President:

Dear CSEA Chapter #327 Members,

You may have received an e-mail recently from an outside organization encouraging you to drop your CSEA union membership.

You should be aware that there are extremely well-funded groups which are attempting to weaken - and ultimately do away with – organizations such as ours whose mission is to protect the most vulnerable workers in education:  classified employees.  The objective of these “right to work” groups is to divide and destroy unions, but it is up to US to decide our future and our fate.  If we stand united, there is nothing and no one that can weaken us. 

CSEA has been in existence for 91 years and is directly responsible for many classified employee rights and protections, including CalPers Membership (expanded in 1988 to include part-timers), overtime pay, paid holidays, personal necessity leave, and many other rights that previously only certificated employees received and which we now enjoy.   We must never take these benefits for granted.

The primary benefit of being a union member is the ability to vote on a collectively bargained agreement (members in good standing), as we did recently.  As well as the right to union representation in employee/employer situations and the right to run for office in our chapter.  With the significant assistance of our CSEA Labor Relations Representative (LRR), your negotiations team worked hard for our new multi-year contract, containing a wage increase for the next three years and an increase in the health benefit cap.  Your CSEA dues help to pay for our LRR’s expertise and attendance at the many negotiations meetings that took place.  The other members of the negotiations teams are strictly volunteer.

As our Superintendent stated at MCOE’s Back-to-School event in August, she understands and appreciates the value and benefit of both certificated and classified unions.  Our union leadership provides an important line of communication with management on behalf of our members.  We are fortunate to have a positive, collaborative relationship with our Superintendent – many chapters do not.

Each dropped membership diminishes us as a whole.  These uncertain times provide an opportunity to recommit yourself to your union and specifically, our local Chapter #327.  We know you are out there and we care about you. 

Please contact any member of our Executive team directly if you have any questions or concerns.

In Solidarity,

Vicki Ascher, Chapter President - vascher @ marinschools
Terri Nadell, 1st Vice President - tnadell @ marinschools
Christine Franceschi, 2nd Vice President - cfranceschi @ marinschools
Adriane Lommel, Chief Job Steward - alommel @ marinschools
Debbie Aviron, Secretary - daviron @ marinschools
Nancy Duns, Treasurer - nduns @ marinschools
Alex Young, Communications Officer - ayoung @ marinschools

Click here for the 9/19 chapter meeting agenda.