Jovan Hyzen is joining us this morning.
He is the vice president of membership and resource development for Envision Greater Fond de Lac.
Happy election day.
Happy election day to you.
This is the the holiday we celebrate today is the end of all the ads.
So we're all free and hopefully lots of those texts and phone calls.
Right and the flyers that you get in the mail and yeah.
I've
been starting some flyers in my fireplace, so those actually are pretty useful.
I'll miss those.
Joe, we wanted to talk about a couple of different things.
Now, there's a relocation program for people from out of state.
It's kind of a talent acquisition type of thing, but how is that program going?
Yeah, I don't know how many of the listeners have.
heard about this, so I'll kind of start from the beginning, but the states of Wisconsin designated a $5 million budget designation for talent attraction, and they awarded grants to different organizations throughout the state who could apply with a plan for relocating working families from out of state to Wisconsin.
So the stipulations are really simple.
They have to move from out of state.
They can't be relocating interstate.
They have to earn a household income of at least $55,000 and they have to pass a criminal background check.
After that, the tool that you use was part of the grant process.
So Envision successfully got a grant from the state using the platform called MakeMyMove.com and it has been wildly successful.
We couldn't have even anticipated the interest that we've gotten from this because it is a good way of getting
the quality of life of Fond du Lac County out into the marketplace of people who are looking at picking up stakes and moving in, you know, their different career situations.
Now, some of these folks are working remotely and so they can come quickly because they bring their job with them.
But at least half of them, actually more than half of them that we've welcomed so far have taken new local employment.
And so we've had
folks that have located to Fond du Lac, to Ripon, to Campbell's Port, taking jobs with employers that we all would recognize.
And it's been an awesome economic impact.
So the numbers that we can share that we've had out of the 32 households that we are tasked with attracting over a two-year span, we have already
Broken through the halfway point.
So we've already accepted 17 movers Which is that's the household so the total individual account I think is over 40 people and the tax benefit for you know property taxes income taxes You know all of that stuff the economic impact is really starting to build up.
So it's pretty exciting
Wow, okay, so you're still attracting people and you got more more than a year to go
So
yeah, we've got plenty of plenty of time to go and that's really where we're at now is Getting a little bit more we're actually kind of slowing the process down a little bit because we didn't expect it to go this fast and You know the draw for why come here is of course, you know the quality of life is what leads But there's a financial incentive to move here and that's what maybe folks have heard already is you know $9,500 to move to Fond du Lac County
Now that's a little deceiving because it comes in stages.
Half of that is a cash incentive to offset your relocation costs.
And that's actually paid part upfront and then part after one year of living here.
So the folks who are moving here are not getting a $9,500 check.
They're actually getting a $2,750 check at arrival.
But then the other big portion of that benefit comes through contributions from a lot of our members.
in kind value stuff that's restaurant gift certificates, golf membership, experience packages, tickets to different amenities.
So that's the kind of stuff that really does draw people in because once they get here, they immediately can start kind of engaging in the community and understanding all those quality of life points that make this such a great place to live.
And that's the goal is to not just attract people for a year or
or six months, but to have them put down roots and stay here as lifelong residents.
Okay.
There was another thing that you wanted to update us on, and that was the health insurance employer benefit.
Yeah, this is something we want to get, you know, again, it's election season, of course, but it's also open enrollment season.
And so for any employers who are, and I say this like it's a unique group, it's everyone, everyone is feeling
the pinch right now of health care cost increases.
And so to offer something in this space through the value of membership with Envision, we have rolled out a program that offers a cost savings for employers.
And so the information is all on our website, but to high point this, there are two options that we offer.
And they are, one is a level-funded program, sort of a traditional health plan that could be, you know, useful for employers of under 100, let's say.
That's probably that sweet spot.
The other program is something a little bit newer in the marketplace called ICRA.
And this stands for Individual Coverage Health
health reimbursement arrangement, something like that.
Someone will call in and say, I miscluttered it, but the idea here is that the employer gets the opportunity to set a fixed cost that is a reimbursement to each employee to access health care on the open marketplace.
And that makes it a model that's much more predictable so that you're not seeing these double-digit increases every year, but you have a fixed cost to offer to the employee and it's also a tax-protected resource.
So a lot of employers are starting to shift in this direction for more control over this.
The data says that 95% of employers who have gone from a traditional health plan to an ICRA plan have
like one year later, have stuck with it and have said, we have no regrets.
Like this has been a good switch.
So while it is still relatively new, it's getting into that, it's getting past that early adoption stage and into more of the adoption by the masses.
And so with both of these programs, we are not the administrator here, but we are marketing these programs because we've negotiated through these particular plans
For any of our members with Envision Greater Fond du Lac, there is a cost savings on these.
So for the level funded plan, there's a 5% discount on premiums.
And for the ICRA plan, there is a per employee discount on the administration fee.
So for any members of Envision or for those who are not yet members, who are in this situation looking at their increase here in the open enrollment time period, give this a look because
for the low cost of membership with Envision, you could immediately offset that cost in healthcare savings and find yourself a little bit of relief from a common pain point.
So just contact someone at Envision if you're an Envision member.
Exactly.
The information's on our website.
We try not to make it too hard to find.
If you go to the membership tab on EnvisionGraderFDL.com,
and drop down there, you'll see it immediately there as exclusive healthcare benefits.
There's a landing page there with some information, but I try to be very available too.
So anybody can email, call me, just call the main line, ask for Joe.
I'm happy to talk with anybody about this stuff because we hear it time and again, this is a pain point.
And so this is one way of us trying to offer a little bit of benefit here for our members.
Well, Joe, we'd like to thank you for joining us this morning and giving us an update from Envision.
Thank you for having me.
I appreciate it.
We've been talking with Joe Van Heisen, who's the vice president of membership and resource development for Envision Greater Von Delac.