April 17, 2013

  Welcome from the Director of Personnel Services!

As you may know, this fiscal year has seen much change in our Church (welcome Pope Francis!) and here locally at the Pastoral Center. We experienced a reduction in staff in February, and have also had many areas where staff has transitioned into new roles and new staff have joined. In the following article, I'll touch on the changes in the Department of Personnel Services, and also introduce our plan for 2013 benefits enrollment which will streamline processes for parishes and schools and provide staff realtime information on their benefits.

First, the staffing changes...

Effective July 1, I accepted the position of Director of Personnel Services, which includes HR, Benefits, Lay Ecclesial Ministry, the Office for Religious, and several additional agencies (see organizational chart of the Pastoral Center departments). While still involved in HR/Benefits matters, I have taken a step back from the day to day operations. Deacon Mel Stasinski has taken the position of Benefits Manager, having previously served as HR Field Rep for Vicariates 5 & 6. New to the HR/Benefits Staff, Preetha Sasikumar joined the team in December 2012, taking responsibility for HRIS and Compensation, following Dan Dirnberger's departure.

Additionally, we have two new HR Field Reps serving Vicariates 1&2 (Kim O'Donoghue) and replacing Deacon Mel in 5&6 (Diana York). Erika Gallardo continues in her role as HR Field Rep for Vicariates 3&4.

Next, an update on benefits...

While there has been much press regarding the impact of the Affordable Care Act on health insurance plans, particularly in the Church setting, our plan either has met most requirements already (eg, no maximum amounts on the level of coverage, wellness coverage at 100%, etc), or is exempt from other mandates (required coverage for contraceptive prescriptions). There are additional fees (which we cannot avoid) pertaining to research and to support the government health exchanges, and other requirements such as automatic enrollment; our benefits team is following the requirements closely and will speak more about these issues at the Open Enrollment meetings to come.

We are very pleased to roll out this year an online benefits enrollment process, replacing the labor and paper intensive process previously in place. Employees will make benefit elections electronically, accessing a secure website, and local administrators will no longer be responsible for collecting health, dental and life insurance paper forms. Deduction amounts will also be fed back to the payroll system, eliminating the calculations and data entry that previously fell on the shoulders of the parish or school benefits administrators.

Finally, we look forward to seeing you soon...

Our OPEN ENROLLMENT MEETINGS for Pastors, principals, business managers will be held April 29 through May 8, at eight (8) locations across the Archdiocese. Given the significant changes in our process for this year, it is imperative that each location send a representative to one of the meetings. 

I look forward to seeing you at the meetings; these are also a great opportunity to meet the new staff in the HR team.

Thanks for all that you do to serve the Church and her people here in the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Chris Cannova

Director of Personnel Services