Employment Benefits

he Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District provides a comprehensive package of employee benefits to its regular full and part-time employees that include various insurance options, paid time off, and other benefits, most of which are described below.

Health, Dental and Employee Assistance Programs

The APCD offers two medical plan options to its employees. In addition to hospital and physician services all plans include mental health, vision, prescription drug and chiropractic coverage. Our current plans are:

Aetna HMO - a comprehensive HMO with a $25 office visit co-payment. For more information on this plan and available physicians in your home or office area visit www.aetna.com/index.htm.
Aetna Open Access Managed Choice - a point-of-service option that combines the reduced cost of an HMO with the direct access and out-of-network coverage of a preferred provider (PPO) plan. For more information visit www.aetna.com/index.htm.

The APCD also offers a dental plan through MetLife. The plan provides the employee the choice of utilizing a preferred provider in the MetLife Dental Network or complete freedom of choice of dentists. A listing of available dentists participating in the MetLife Preferred Dental Program is located at www.metlife.com/dental.

Employees are provided access to an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) administered by Managed Health Network. The plan includes both counseling and telephone consultation services addressing personal needs such as marriage, family & relationship problems, alcohol & drug abuse, emotional, personal & stress-related concerns, child care, elder care, financial & credit problems, federal tax consultation, pre-retirement planning and personal records management.

State Disability Insurance and Long Term Disability Benefits

Most employee groups participate in the State of California Disability Insurance program (SDI). In addition, the APCD provides its regular full and part-time employees coverage through a Long-Term Disability program that provides for up to 60% of pre-disability earnings after a 60-day waiting period.

Cafeteria Plan Allowance and Flexible Spending Plan

All regular full & part-time employees are provided with a cash allowance that can be used to purchase employee benefits such as medical and dental insurance or flexible spending plan options (listed below) or to take as cash. The amount of the cafeteria cash allowance provided varies depending on the employee bargaining unit that covers your job classification and the amount of hours you work.

Regular full and part-time employees are also eligible to participate in voluntary cafeteria plan options which provide additional employee benefits allowing the maximum tax savings under the law. The benefits options include:

Pre-tax health insurance premiums - this premium conversion option eliminates taxes from your health premium payments.
Medical Spending Accounts - this reimbursement account allows you to set aside part of your salary pre-tax towards eligible un-reimbursed medical expenses.
Dependent Care Spending Accounts - this is another pre-tax reimbursement account that you can use to pay for eligible childcare expenses.
Term Life Insurance - a high coverage term life insurance plan at low group prices with the first $50,000 coverage available on a pre-tax basis.
Personal Accident Insurance - a high limit, low cost accident insurance for you or you whole family.
Catastrophic Care Insurance - Cancer and Intensive Care programs that provide cash benefits in the event of a catastrophic injury or illness that requires placement in a hospital intensive care unit or for the treatment of cancer.

Leave Benefits

The APCD provides several types of leave benefits that are available to all employees in regular positions. Vacation and sick-leave accrue bi-weekly and leave benefits for part-time employees are pro-rated. Included are:

Vacation - Vacation is earned at a rate of 12 days for new employees to 25 days for employees with more than 15 years of service with the APCD. After six months of employment, employees may take vacation by scheduling time off with their supervisors.

Holiday - Employees are entitled to 10 paid holidays during which APCD offices are closed. Additionally, one floating holiday is earned during the first pay-period of each calendar year.

Sick Leave - Regular employees also earn 12 days sick leave per year which can be used for personal illness or the illness of an immediate family member. Sick leave can be also used for bereavement leave of up to 5 days.

Retirement and Deferred Compensation Plans

To provide for the long-term financial security of regular APCD employees in retirement, the APCD provides a defined benefit retirement plans under the 1937 APCD Retirement Act through the Santa Barbara County Employees Retirement System. Plan benefits are based on longevity and final salary at time of retirement. Our retirement program is reciprocal with most PERS and County 1937 Act retirement programs. The APCD does not participate in Social Security.

Deferred Compensation - The APCD offers voluntary participation in a 457 Plan (a government variation of a 401(k) investment plan) administered by Hartford Insurance.

Additional benefits for managers and selected employee groups

The following benefits are provided in addition to the regular employee benefit package.

Term Life Insurance - $20,000 policy

Retirement contribution - partial APCD pickup of employee's retirement contribution.