2022 HR Insider Newsletter Summer

Summer 2022

Insider Human Resources Creativity | Collaboration | Integrity | Stewardship | Professionalism | Science-Based

Spring 2022

Summer Edition 2022

Benefits 2022 Annual Open Enrollment BCBS COVID Tests Update Your Beneficiaries Retirement TCDRS Webinars Mission Square Education Webinars

Human Resources Request to Attend a Conference, Training or Symposium Bereavement Leave

Training Online Training & Development Second Quarter Training Schedule Wellness ACI Webinar - Healing Modalities Records Open Records Requests, PIA, FOIA

Recruitment Linkedin Current Vacancies

Promotion New Hires

Important Dates Deadlines; Anniversaries; Birthdays and Events

CLICKABLE LINKS:

MEDICAL DENTAL FSA/DCAP/HRA

LIFE/AD&D/LTD

RETIREMENT

MISSION SQUARE

Spring 2022

Benefits

TCDRS Webinars Tailored to Members Retirement In our last newsletter, we mentioned that TCDRS is hosting webinars with retirement planning experts for mem- bers. To view a list of webinars and to register online, please visit the TCDRS website. Topics include generati- onal planning, long-term care planning, Social Security overview, and more.

2022 Annual Open Enrollment is Starting in August! Enroll, drop or change benefts August 16, 2022 – September 9, 2022. Open enrollment is your once-a-year opportunity to change your ben- eft elections for the coming year, unless you have a qualifying life event, such as getting married or having a child.

Upcoming TCDRS webinar! Retirement Your Financial Future Thursday, August 11th, 12:00 - 1:00

Reminder: BCBS Provides COVID-19 At Home Tests at No Cost to You As in previous years, when logging in to ADP on the frst day of Open Enrollment, you will be greeted with a pop-up message asking you to start your Open Enrollment session. You will be able to review each of your elections and will be given options to keep, drop or add benefts. Join our live virtual Open Enrollment webinar on August 16, 2022, at 9:00 a.m. Speakers will include representatives from our various beneft plans. Be on the lookout for an email from HR in August with more details about the plans and the calendar invite with the Zoom link for our Open Enrollment webinar.

Retirement planning is more than just understanding your TCDRS benefts. Join TCDRS as they host spea - kers from the Association of Financial Educators to provide you with additional information related to bu- dgeting, saving, and other fnancial resources to help you plan for retirement and the unexpected on your road to retirement.

Mission Square Retirement Upcoming Education Webinars

Estate Planning Basics Wednesday, July 13

meet your fnancial goals, and improve your overall f - nancial security now and in the future. Will You Have Enough to Retire Comfortably Wednesday, Augsut 24th Most of us imagine retirement as a happy time, a reward for a lifetime of hard work, full of possibility and po- tential. We have good reason to see retirement in a po - sitive light. Americans are living longer, healthier lives than ever before. In fact, for some of us, retirement will make up a full third of our lives. Of course, this means that our retirement assets will have to do more for us over a longer period of time. This makes planning for our retirement essential. Investing for Retirement Basics Wednesday, September 14th Whether you’re just starting out in your career or need a refresher, this seminar serves as a discussion point for your retirement portfolio. It introduces basic investing concepts, including risk, asset allocation, diversifcati - on, rebalancing, market timing and dollar-cost avera- ging. Register HERE for all webinars. All webinars are held from 12:00 - 1:00 CST.

You can purchase tests at over 65,000 pharmacies na- tionwide or order them online to be shipped directly to your home. Find a list of network pharmacies at www. bcbstx.com/covid-19 or call the BCBSTX Customer Service number listed on your member ID card to help find a location near you. Only FDA-authorized at-home or over-the- counter (OTC) antigen diagnostic tests may be covered under your pharmacy benefit. These tests don’t need a prescription and a lab to read the results. If you aren’t sure if a test kit is FDA-approved or covered, ask your phar- macist for help. How do I pay for an at-home test? The easiest way to buy an at-home test is at the pharma cy counter. Ask the pharmacist to submit the claim to

Prime Therapeutics under your pharmacy benefit. You may have to show your member ID if you have not used that pharmacy before. If you don’t go to the pharmacy counter and instead

An estate plan is a map of how you want your perso- nal and fnancial affairs to be handled in the future. An effective estate plan can help ensure that your familys fnancial needs will be taken care of, and that your per - sonal wishes will be carried out in the manner you in- tended. It is a critical part of your overall fnancial plan. Social Security Wednesday, July 27th As you near retirement, one of the biggest fnancial de - cisions you’ll need to make is when to begin receiving your Social Security retirement benefts. With pensions disappearing, Social Security remains the major sour- ce of guaranteed lifetime retirement income for most Americans, so it is important to take the time to explore your options and make an informed, well-reasoned de- cision. Financial Planning Basics: Do You Have a Tailored

use the regular checkout counter, or, if your pharmacy isn’t set up to file the claims, you will have to pay for the test kits. You can file a claim to be reimbursed up to $12 per test, up to 8 tests every 30 days per covered member. This is also true if you buy them from an approved online retailer. The claim

form is available in SharePoint. Residential households in the U.S. are now eligible for another order of free at-home tests on USPS.com. Or- der your tests HERE.

Need to Update Your Beneficiaries? It is important to periodically monitor your benefciaries for your retirement and life insurance plans. You can help avoid unintended consequences by updating benefciary designations to account for life changes. You can up - date your RSLI life insurance and AD&D benefciaries by completing the Benefciary Change Form in NeoGov eForms . To update your benefciaries for TCDRS or MissionSquare, login to your portals directly to update your benefciaries.

Financial Plan in Place? Wednesday, August 10th

Everyone can beneft from a fnancial plan that is tai - lored to individual needs and circumstances. A fnanci - al roadmap can motivate you to save money, help you

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Spring 2022

Request to Attend a Conference, Training or Symposium Human Resources

Online Training and Development Training

A Request to Attend Conference, Training or Symposium form and the Salary Reduction Agreement if applicable, must be completed and approved via NeoGov prior to re- gistering/paying for an event and/or requesting reimbursement for con - ference expenses.

Once these forms have been appro- ved electronically in NeoGov, you may then submit your requisition in the Intacct system and must upload your approved Request to Attend a Conference as supporting docu- mentation. Once the requisition has been approved, you may then regis- ter/pay for the event. If requesting reimbursement for conference ex- penses, you will need to submit the

receipts via Intacct. Requests that go outside of this pro - cess, may be delayed and/or denied. Please reach out to Margaret Ross at extension 110 if you need assis- tance navigating NeoGov or have questions regarding the Request to Attend a Conference, Training or Symposium form.

Defensive Driving Online Training Wednesday, July 20th On July 20th staff will receive an external email from Comedy Defensive Driving. This email will contain login instructions and the direct link to the online learning platform. Staff must complete this mandatory, six-hour, De - fensive Driving course within two weeks. Upon completion of the course, you will have the ability to download your Certifcate of Completion. You may submit your Certifcate of Completion to your insurance carrier for auto insurance discounts. Human Resources will obtain a copy of your Certifcate of completion for your training records via Comedy Driving. Harassment Awareness and Diversity/Inclusion Training Thursday, September 8th This mandatory training will be facilitated by Kemp Smith via Zoom. Please see below for details and appro- priate link to join: Morning Non-Supervisory Session 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. A meeting invite via Outlook has been sent to those designated to attend. Please plan accordingly. Mid-Day Supervisory Session 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. A meeting invite via Outlook has been sent to those designated to attend. Please plan accordingly. On the day of the event, click the link provided on your Outlook calendar to join the discussion. Once the training has been completed, staff will be assigned the Harassment Awareness & Diversity/Inclusion Training Acknowledgement via NeoGov. Mission Square Retirement Webinar: Estate Planning Thursday, September 22nd, 10:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. An effective estate plan can help ensure your family’s fnancial needs will be taken care of, and that your personal wishes will be carried out in the event of your death. Learn how to create your plan for your family. To REGIS- TER for this event, click HERE: Service Desk Training Wednesday, September 28th, 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. The IT department will discuss the process for submitting requests via Service Desk. Topics include: service desk access, access to service desk through global protect portal, navigating service desk, review service desk catego- ries, how to submit a request, and how to view the status of a request. To JOIN, click the following link on the day of the event: Service Desk Training We encourage all employees to sign up for webinars as they become available and continue to explore online tra - ining resources. Check out our HR Training/Events Calendar in SharePoint for upcoming virtual events designed for the EAA. In addition, online training is available thru Fred Pryor, NeoGov, TML, and New Horizons. Please contact Margaret Ross if you have any questions or have difficulty logging into these portals. 3rd Quarter Virtual Events

Bereavement Leave An employee may use up to one week of accrued sick leave as bereavement leave for the event of death of an immediate family member. An immediate family member is defned as an employee’s spouse, father, mother, sister, brother, daughter, son, stepfather, step- mother, stepsister, stepdaughter or stepson. An employee may use up to three consecutive days of accrued sick leave as bereavement leave in the event of death of the employee’s father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, grandchild, grandparent, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, aunt, uncle, niece, neph- ew or cousin. Employees are allowed up to four hours of accrued sick leave as bereavement leave to attend the funeral of a fellow regular employee or retiree of the EAA, provided such absence from duty will not interfere with normal operations. Requests that do not fall under the categories listed above may be submitted through Human Resources for General Manager approval or an employee may choose to utilize their personal leave as bereavement leave.

When submitting a request to utilize sick leave/per - sonal leave as bereavement in ADP, an employee will need to include one of the Reason Codes below: Reason Code: BEREAV SL This Reason Code is to be used when requesting to use sick leave as bereavement leave. BEREAV PL This Reason Code is to be used when requesting to use personal leave as bereavement leave. See below example of Time Off Request in ADP:

For more informa- tion on the use of sick/personal leave, please refer to the Leave of Absence (Non-Medical) Ad- ministrative Pro- cedure located in

SharePoint and ADP. Please reach out to Margaret Ross, ext. 110 if you need assistance navigating ADP or have questions regarding the use of sick/personal leave as bereavement.

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Spring 2022

Wellness

Recruitment

Add the EAA to your LinkedIn connections and help us increase our followers. We highlight em - ployee & community activities, new hires and post our job vacancies on our EAA LinkedIn page. Feel free to share them with your followers!

ACI Webinar: Healing Modalities Thursday, August 25th, 10:00am - 11:00am

Combining Eastern and Western medicine is a great way to treat the whole body. Learn about different types of alternative therapies and how to beneft from using them. To REGISTER for this event, click the following link: Healing Modalities and indicators when support may be needed. Click HERE to register

WELCOME WORK-STUDY STUDENTS! CURRENT VACANCIES

Stay up to date with the latest job vacan- cies and scheduled career fairs by visiting the Calendar of Events directly on the EAA Careers page. Once you’ve subs- cribed, you will receive updates to vacan- cies as they become available. Aquifer Environmental Scientist II

Records

Carla Anaya CAST TECH High School

Ian Anaya CAST TECH High School

Claire Mueller City of San Antonio Ambassador

We are pleased to announce that Martin Hernandez has been promoted to Network & Information Systems Su - pervisor effective June 25, 2022. Martin began his employment with the EAA on September 16, 2019, as a Network Administrator and currently serves as Sr Network Administrator. In this role, Martin was responsible for network administration for the local area network, administration of all AWS and Azure cloud-based infrastructure, performing routine server main - tenance, and maintaining networking equipment including routers, frewalls, and servers. In his new role, Martin will be responsible for supervising the daily coordination of the organization’s network and servers including security protocols, remote meetings, and help desk services. Martin will also be responsible for managing the de- velopment of security protocols, conducting periodic audits of security protocols, providing training on acceptable use, and responding to any security incidents. P R O M O T I O N

Open Records Requests, PIA, FOIA The Texas Public Information Act (PIA) (Texas Gover- nment Code Chapter 552) and the Freedom of Infor - mation Act (FOIA) give the public the right to request access to government information. Under the Act, all government information is presumed open unless there is a specifc exception to disclosure. Additionally, we as public information officers and providers cannot ask the requester why they want information. Information can exist in any format including paper, audio, micro- flm, video, and emails. However, the Act does not re - quire the EAA to create new information, do research or answer questions. The Act goes into effect when a person submits a wri - tten request (email, open records request form, etc.) to a governmental body (in this case, the EAA). Requests can be submitted via the EAA Open Records Center. Open Records Request Process An open records request will be sent to and handled by the records department. Per the Act, an agency must

respond to a request promptly. If a request can’t be f - lled within 10 business days after the EAA received the request, the requester must be informed of the latest date and time the EAA will provide the information. A request may also be sent to any EAA employee. Staff should forward the request to the records department to be processed or fll the request themselves. If the em - ployee responds to the request, they are required to pro - vide a copy of the original request and their response to the records department (Nichelle Cunningham). If a requester calls you for information, please have them send you their request in writing before completing the request. When records necessary to fll a request need to be re - trieved from an EAA employee, the Records Coordina- tor will assign the employee an Activity via the Open Records Center. For step-by-step instructions on how to complete an Activity, click HERE.

Martin holds a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Computer Information Systems and Se- curity from Our Lady of the Lake University and has over 9 years of experience in managing

computer networks and cyber security. Congratulat ions Mart in!

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Spring 2022

New Hires Elizabeth Gonzales - Front Office Clerk I

We would like to recognize and congratulate our 3rd quarter 2022 EAA employee anniversaries. Thank you for your dedicated service and we wish you many more successful years ahead! Anniversaries

NEW SUMMER INTERNS

Name

Date Of Hire

Recognized at Board

Years of Service

Elizabeth joined the Human Resources Services department on May 2, 2022. Elizabeth comes to the EAAwith over 20 years of experience in customer service and office administration. Eli - zabeth is responsible for providing re- ceptionist functions for the EAA. Logan joined the Aquifer Science department on June 6, 2022. Logan received a Bachelor of Science de- gree in Geophysics and a Master of Science degree in Geological Scien- ces from UT at Austin. Logan comes to the EAA with over 5 years of expe- rience in research, data collection, and

Destiny Desha - Environmental Science

Chris Morgan Maggie Veliz Paul Bertetti Natasha Ponce Jorge Paramo

6/19/2017 6/26/2017 6/26/2017 7/23/2012 8/13/2012

7/12/2022 7/12/2022 7/12/2022 8/9/2022 9/13/2022

5 Years 5 Years 5 Years 10 Years 10 Years

Destiny joined the EAA on June 6, 2022. Destiny is a student at Sam Houston High School and will be a senior this upcoming school year.

Deadlines and Events

Logan Schmidt - Aquifer Data Analyst II

Birthdays Mitchell, Rachel July 4 Garcia, Omar J July 14 Eason, Sarah Anne July 17 Rogers, Charles Matthew July 19 Storment, Scott Douglas August 7 Morgan, Chris August 13 Marquez II, Felix August 15 Bonham, Mariah August 16 Barela, Jose August 17 Gonzalez, Ann Margaret August 18 Cunningham, Nichelle August 22 Hamilton, J. Mark August 26 Bruecher, Taylor C August 27 Cubillo, Erica September 2 Hendrix, Shelly September 10 Garza, Raquel September 13 Luevano, Gizelle September 15 Young, Monique September 16 Gary, Marcus September 21 Ponce, Natasha September 21 Tolman, Kristina September 23 Hinojosa, Jesus September 24

Sarah Cervera - Communications

Sarah joined the EAA on June 6, 2022. is currently pursuing a Ba - chelor of Arts degree in Communi- cations from Texas A&M Univer- sity-San Antonio with an expected graduation date of May 2023.

July 01 July 04 July 08 July 08 July 14 July 15 July 20 July 22 July 29

Payday

Independence Day - Office Closed

Timesheets Due

analysis. Logan will be responsible for collection, analy- sis, and maintenance of hydrogeologic data, and perfor- ming data and statistical analysis projects and modeling efforts in support of the mission and values of the EAA.

See Your Possibilities Session III EAAVirtual Staff Meeting via Zoom

Payday

Aries Andrade - Communication

Defensive Driving Online Training

Aries joined the EAA on June 7, 2022. Aries is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Geo- graphy Water Resources from Texas State University with an expected graduation date of December 2022.

Timesheets Due

Alyssa Balzen - Geoscientist II

Payday August 05 Timesheets Due August 11

Alyssa joined the Aquifer Science de - partment on June 27, 2022. Alyssa re - ceived a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology and a Master of Science Degree in Geology from the Univer- sity of Texas at San Antonio. Alyssa comes to the EAA with over 6 years in groundwater operations, feld re -

EAAVirtual Staff Meeting via Zoom

August 12 Payday August 16 Open enrollment presentation August 19 Timesheets Due August 25 ACI Webinar: Healing Modalities August 26 Payday September 02 Timesheets Due September 05 Labor Day - Office Closed September 08 Harrassment Awareness & Diversity September 09 Payday September 15 EAAVirtual Staff Meeting via Zoom September 16 Timesheets Due September 22 MissionSquare Webinar September 23 Payday September 28 Service Desk Training September 30 Timesheets Due

Olivia Branson - EAHCP Administration

Olivia joined the EAA on June 7, 2022. Oliva is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Bio- logy from Baker University with an expected graduation date of May 2023.

search, and interpreting hydrologic data. Alyssa will be performing data collection and data analyses activities designed to carry out the mission of the EAA and support the Aquifer Science Research Program. Robert Garza - IT Director

Robert joined the Administraion and Financial Services division on June 27, 2022. Robert received a Bachelor of Science degree in Earth Science and a Graduate Certifcate in Public Management from the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Robert comes to the EAA with over 30 years of expe- rience in information technology and management. Robert will be managing and directing all acti- vities associated with the development and implementation of the EAA’s management information system (MIS) and telecommunications.

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