Vo lu m e 2 : : I s s u e 4 : : Au g u s t / S e p t e m b e r 2 014
DIRECTION A Q&A WITH BOERNE MAYOR MIKE SCHULTZ
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CONTENTS 8
FROM THE PUBLISHER
10 CALENDAR 28 LEGAL
12
Take the job and love it. Part 2.
16
C 12 Group
30 TAX 33 COMPANY MD SECTION
Administration / Advertising Publisher Benjamin D. Schooley ben@thecompanymag.com ADVERTISING SALES 210-507-5250 sales@thecompanymag.com
22 DIRECTION
ART
A Q&A with Boerne Mayor Mike Schultz
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Mobile devices, credit card readers, and your business 6 | COMPANY MAGAZINE
Creative Director Ben Weber ben.weber@smvtexas.com thecompanymag.com
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thecompanymag.com | 7
WELCOME | a letter from the publisher Dearest COMPANY Reader, I will risk sounding like a cranky old curmudgeon when I say this, but the city of Boerne is nothing like what it used to be. No, I’m not “anti-growth” by any stretch, but having moved here in the summer of ‘88 I can confidently say I’ve lived here in both “the good ol’ days” as well as these current days of a ballooning population, crammed roadways, and the never ending sound of saws cutting lumber for new homes. Don’t get me wrong, I love Boerne. I have roots here, and am raising my children here. I drive those same roads, I pay those same taxes, and I have the same conversations as you over a cup of coffee about Boerne, it’s past, present, and future. You typically have the population of people that are staunchly opposed to virtually any new development, any new strip center, and certainly no new subdivisions. At all costs, slam the gates shut and refuse any entry to a single new resident. On the other end of the spectrum you have the group that is smiles broadly when they see a pasture being cleared for a new subdivision and ready their business cards for the influx of new customers. I’m guilty of siding with both sides of the argument at differing times depending on what I have most in mind: my business or my family. Somewhere in the middle, enter the city of Boerne and its mayor, Mike Schultz.
With the unenviable job of attempting to navigate the pitfalls of a divided populace, he and his staff must also determine the current direction and future for the city. An aging infrastructure, an insane demand for water and city services, and the impossible balance of tax revenue and budget issues, and you have one very tough job to tackle. How is the Mayor doing with this responsibility? As with any political issue, it would depend on who you ask. With that divided populace, you’d be bound to get differing answers. Because of this, we figured that we would just go straight to the source and ask Mayor Schultz some of the questions and let him answer for himself. From growth to traffic to the small business community, we enjoyed sitting down with him and unpacking some seriously complicated topics. Welcome to COMPANY. This entire publication is designed to grow and strengthen the business community of our area, and that community directly impacts the living conditions for countless families. The economy in Boerne is strong, as is evidenced by the growth, and we hope that this particular issue brings forth conversations about the town that we all call home, because at the end of the day, it is the decisions we make today that will define our future. Sincerely,
Benjamin D. Schooley Publisher
8 | COMPANY MAGAZINE
CALENDAR |
BUSINESS AND HILL COUNTRY EVENTS CALENDAR
August 14
Business After Hours Mixer Sponsored by Hawg’s Biergarten 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM Come mix and mingle with your fellow Chamber Members at the Business After Hours mixer sponsored by Hawg’s Biergarten.
August 19
Networking Healthcare - Medical Forum 2014 Sponsored by Morningside Ministries 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM Come join us for networking forum for our Chamber members in the Healthcare and Medical profession. The businesses and services that will benefit from this gathering will be the following: Audiologists, Cancer Care, Chiropractors and Counselors Dialysis, Doctors, Dentists, Home Care Nurses Home Care Therapists, Homeopathic Care, Hospice Care Hospitals, Labs/Testing, Life Coaching, Nursing Homes Occupational Therapists/Specialists, Optometrists, Pharmacists 10 | COMPANY MAGAZINE
Physical Therapists, Radiologists, Speech Therapists Sports Medicine
August 20
Special Events Networking Forum sponsor- The Cana Ballroom,Smoke in the Hills 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM Special Events Networking Forum Luncheon sponsored by The Cana Ballroom (link), Smoke in the Hills (link) Parties by Design (link). RSVP required. Our forum is for those Chamber Member businesses who plan special events or take a part in with services for special events.
September 4
Government Affairs Council Meeting 11:45 AM - 1:15 PM Boerne Chamber Conference Room 121 S. Main Street, Boerne, TX 78006
September 8
Greater Boerne Chamber Golf and Tennis Tournament 7:00 AM - 1:00 PM Register Now Come join us for our Greater Boerne Chamber of Commerce Golf & Tennis Tournament. Swinging “Fore” Scholarships.
September 25
Business After Hours Mixer sponsored by Boerne Performing Arts 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM Come mix and mingle with your fellow Chamber Members at the Business After Hours Mixer sponsored by Boerne Performing Arts
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LEADERSHIP |
TAKE THIS JOB AND LOVE IT PART 2 OF 4 By Paul Wilson
Do you love your job? If not, why not? Apart from the typical list of grievances such as pay, hours, travel, bureaucracy, micro-management and teammates, what’s keeping you from loving your job? Everybody wants to love what they do for a living. Unfortunately, very few people actually do. What a lousy way to “make a living”? Most people don’t understand that enjoying your job 12 | COMPANY MAGAZINE
comes down to four factors integral to loving any endeavor of life. Ignore, dismiss or trivialize one or more of these factors and it will be no surprise that you dread going to work. Even if you can’t do exactly what you want to do for a living, there are few moves you can make that will make a tremendous difference in how you feel about getting up to go to work each day. In Part One of this series of articles, we discussed how important it is that you are genuinely passionate about what
you do for a living. If you ignore or squelch your innate passions in the work you do, it will lead to an undercurrent of frustration, disappointment and regret in your life. Your passions are like hunger. They need to be fed or they will gnaw at you until they are satisfied. If you are not doing something that reflects your passion, you need to begin there. Change positions. Change jobs. Change companies. Change careers. Just don’t settle for doing something for which you have little or no passion. It’s an awful way to spend a career. In this second article, I invite you to consider another significant factor to loving your job. Working with people you enjoy is integral to how you feel about going to work each day. Think about it. Most of the enjoyable experiences in our life are shared with people we enjoy. Vacations. Birthdays. Anniversaries. Holidays. Reunions. Recreation. Even a disappointing or miserable experience can be salvaged as a memorable adventure if we are with the right people. Whether it’s a cruise or a camp out, a vacation gone awry becomes more bearable with a friend or two who can keep you laughing when everything is going wrong. No matter what you’re doing, the company you keep makes all the difference in the world to how you feel about it. Genuine camaraderie shared with wonderful people is a gift that enriches any situation. Even work. Work can be hard enough as it is. Doing it with people we enjoy can certainly make it a whole lot easier. When we hear the word “environment” we typically think in terms of weather or surroundings. Cold. Hot. Dark. Noisy. Cluttered. Classy. Environment is the setting or situation that surrounds you. We need to realize that “relational environment” is every bit as real as the temperature or lighting in a room. It has a profound influence on how you experience your work. In fact, when it comes to a positive work experience, relational environment is more influential than physical setting. If you work with the right people, you can turn a musty garage into a million-dollar enterprise where you look forward to working each day. Conversely, working with difficult people in the plush offices of a lavish suite can crush whatever joy you have for your job. The “people factor” has an enormous influence on how much satisfaction you find in your work. Think of your relational environment using terms like Healthy/Unhealthy, Comfortable/Uncomfortable, or Positive/Negative. Relationally speaking, is the atmosphere where you work physically, emotionally and professionally
healthy? Are you comfortable around your peers? Is the culture of your company positive? For instance, an oppressive leadership culture is not healthy. A passive-aggressive teammate can make collaborative experiences uncomfortable. A pessimistic or critical atmosphere is not positive. If that describes where you are employed, it’s going to be really difficult to look forward to going to work each day. Let’s not be naive. You are never going to work anywhere where relational challenges won’t arise from time to time. Conflict of some kind is inevitable in the fast-paced, stressfilled environment of the workplace. People say or do things that annoy, hurt and exasperate one another. You’ll never find a job where that won’t happen. Nor are you ever going to work at a place where everybody is exactly like you. In fact, if you want to really enjoy your job, welcome the opportunity to work with a wide variety of people and personalities. Great teams celebrate the diversity of perspectives that come with different personalities. If you learn to embrace the unique differences of other people at work with a grateful curiosity, it will alter how you feel about your job. One key to enjoying your peers at work is interdependence. It is a privilege to work with people who are very different from you when they offer strengths and skills that complement the ones you lack. Learn to appreciate the variety of approaches, perspectives and insights other people bring to the table. Another key is unity. Working with people who share the same vision, common goals, and similar values greatly increases the likelihood that you’ll love going to work each day. I understand that many people do not have the luxury of choosing their teammates at work. Most people have to find relational harmony with teammates that somebody else hired. So what can we do if we find ourselves working with people we don’t particularly enjoy? Of course, one option is to change companies with the hopes of finding a healthier relational environment. While you may find a better one, you will never find a perfect one. Don’t be naïve to think that simply changing companies is going to eliminate relational challenges at work. There will be drama at your new job too. If changing jobs is not an option, here are a few suggestions to consider.
Be the change you want to see. You are the best person to influence the relational culture of your workplace. Set the example of what you’d like to see happen around you. It often inspires others to step up their game. Don’t engage in the drama. It doesn’t matter what other people say or do, they cannot decide how you react. You and you alone retain the power to choose how you will respond to the behavior of other people. The following observation is so true. “Drama doesn’t just walk into your life. You either create it, invite it or associate with it.” If you want to find more joy in your job, don’t allow yourself to be sucked into the drama that others create around you. Address issues with difficult people. One of the best steps you can take toward dealing with difficult people in your workplace is an open and honest conversation with them about whatever issues threaten a healthy relational environment. This doesn’t have to be aggressive. A healthy approach to conflict resolution seeks a careful balance between the courage to be candid and the compassion to be considerate. Open and honest dialog about working together can be offered as a sincere search for an understanding between two parties. A conversation such as this can be a healthy team building experience. Talking directly with an offending peer is a thoughtful move that can go a long toward building greater respect between teammates. Whatever you do, don’t continue to endure a relationally miserable work environment. Over time, it will take a terrible toll not only at work, but also at home and other important arenas of your life. If “things at work” are making you sick, you need to do something about it. Respect yourself enough to draw some boundaries and make moves to ensure that you are working in the best relational environment possible. You wouldn’t just sit at your desk all day and continue working if a colony of bats roosted overhead. That would be awful. Don’t tolerate annoying or abusive behavior from others and allow them to ruin your week either. If you have to work for a living, you might as well do something you love with people you enjoy. It’s your move. Make it!
Paul Wilson is the Senior Pastor of Cibolo Creek Community Church in Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas. Launched in 1996, Cibolo Creek is committed to the challenging mission of creating a church unchurched people love to attend. A Masters degree in Theology and thirty years of leadership experience in non-profit organizations have granted Paul a unique perspective on what it takes to lead people effectively. Paul and his wife, Charlotte, and their two teenage sons make their home in Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas.
thecompanymag.com | 13
Welcome to Boerne
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SMALL BUSINESS |
THE POWER OF CHRISTIAN CEO ROUND TABLES
IS MAKING IT’S MARK IN CENTRAL TEXAS FOR CEOS AND BUSINESS OWNERS By Lisa V. Cone 16 | COMPANY MAGAZINE
Do you ever think about how to apply your core Christian values to enhance and expand your business and make it a part of your personal ministry? Business leaders agree, just running a company and keeping it viable is more than a full time job. Most CEOs don’t take the time to develop a strategy to incorporate eternal values into their businesses because they’re already overwhelmed. Even those who do take the time lack a set of time-tested strategies to assist them. A growing number of Christian businesspeople are finding the help they seek through The C12 Group – a national company headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina. C12 was founded in 1992 as a CEO/Owner peer group company that would combine the cutting-edge management strategies and advantages of the round table peer advisory board with the in-depth curriculum, rigorous methodology and quality control in delivery. The result is the leading, faith-based peer group organization for business owners in the country. Mike Sharrow, a successful corporate consultant, executive manager and associate pastor previously, joined C12 for the advisory benefit and became part of a peer group in San Antonio in 2010. “It supports faith-based management and the intent to see businesses glorify God,” Sharrow said. And they seem to have the winning formula. A Movement that is Catching Fire Sharrow is now the managing chairman of the C12 Group of Central Texas along with Robert Vogel, Alan Patty and Bill Sitter that serves Christian CEOs and business owners in the region. In just a few short years, the DFW-AustinSan Antonio-Houston triangle has enrolled upwards of 240 members including CEOs, business owners and their key players. “The Texas C12 member companies are stewarding over $3 billion in local revenues and employ thousands of people,” Sharrow said. “Nationally, it’s 1,450 members representing billions of capital, hundreds of thousands of jobs and directly impacting a significant percentage of the U.S. Population.” The movement is catching fire. Since December
2012 C12 national membership has grown 27% , in Texas 51% and in Central Texas 97% . In the last year, 94% of member companies saw revenue growth, growing by an average of 23.9%. These same member companies are projecting a 21% growth in 2014. Meanwhile most of these companies are deploying things like workplace ministries, chaplains, service programs and faith-driven strategies to impact the lives of people. It would seem bringing faith into business can actually be good business! How AND Why It Works C12 serves companies ranging from around $1M to over $2B in gross revenues and in every sector and industry imaginable. These members work in peer groups of 12-15 with other CEOs and business owners. “Much like a Chick-Fil-A, the secret recipe of content delivery, board experience, format and operating philosophy is carefully stewarded nationally with covenants and practices to ensure that a CEO in Philadelphia is getting the same experience as one in Honolulu, Detroit or Austin,” Sharrow explained. The chairman’s job is to oversee the groups and offer on-site coaching. Every chairman is a successful Christian business practitioner who has completed the C12 process. Here’s a look at how a local C12’s activities break out: Monthly board meetings – these are groups of 12-15 that participate in a round table setting. This is the peer group that private business goals and ideas are discussed at. It is referred to as a “Business Sabbath” where the CEO takes a day of rest from the workaday world of his business and engages in goal-setting and problem solving. It’s an opportunity to work ON the business instead of IN the business. These confidential groups are closed to the public. About half-way through each month, a chairman visits each member-company to see how they’re doing implementing the goals and strategies discussed with the peer group. If they’re having difficulty, he/she is there to offer individual support to move forward. The C12 core curriculum balances its time in four areas: 20% prayer/devotion, 25% executive education, 30% peer
forum and 25% coaching and accountability. It also sponsors occasional regional mixers and national summits which offer special seminars and workshops on things like, “Pay for Performance, Strategic Planning for Business & Ministry and A Life of Balance.” “Networking happens but it’s not the focus,” Sharrow said. These periodic functions are designed to be more about collaboration. “The average business owner is burned-out, working too much, isolated and doesn’t have a safe place to go to get help,” Sharrow stated. “It’s like being intoxicated with the idea that if I just work a little harder I’ll figure it out. But although more work gets done, the chronic problems persist and there’s always more work.” Sharrow cited Ecclesiastes 10:10 and said it’s about taking the time to sharpen the saw. It’s about innovating towards excellence. “What we talk about is what we actually do. Keeping the end in mind, we press forward knowing the end result is eternal. We take a long-term outlook that doesn’t allow the bottom-line to be the only bottom-line.” So how do they do that? For starters, C12 takes a holistic approach and helps CEOs and businesspeople achieve a healthy balance in their marriage, family life, personal health and well-being. Very often, a CEO sacrifices quality time with their spouse and family and neglects their health to take care of the business. Eventually, any one of these can take its toll. Sharrow said that part of C12’s evaluation of a business’s success is how it creates and implements a transformational effect for employees, vendors, clients and communities. They learn to intentionally catalyze conversations about God in the course of doing business and to inspire each other. C12 also encourages in-house chaplaincies to support staff with whatever challenges they’re facing. The natural out-growth is that typically other Bible-based support groups emerge that employees can participate in during their discretionary time. Ultimately, everyone who comes into contact with the business is a beneficiary of its integrity and faith-centricity.
thecompanymag.com | 17
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SMALL BUSINESS |
What can Tablet and Smartphone Credit Card Readers do for Your Small Business? By Ginny Thompson
We’ve been hearing it for years, and it finally seems to be happening: We’re moving toward a cashless society. Those who operate bricks-and-mortar retail stores have no doubt seen a dramatic increase in the percentage of customers who pay with a credit or debit card. That cashless trend has merged with the rise of handheld devices to create a new payment-processing option for businesses: The tablet or smartphone credit card reader. Instead of the traditional bulky, hard-wired card readers, these small, lightweight mobile readers plug directly into a smartphone or tablet, connect wirelessly, and allow a clerk or salesperson to run a credit or debit card from anywhere inside — or outside — the store. For the larger-scale business owner, mobile card readers can change the dynamic of a store and how clerks interact with customers and conduct sales on the floor. For the smaller business operator who may or may not have a bricks-and-mortar operation, these readers allow card transactions where previously cash exchanges were the only option. As fewer people carry large amounts of cash, mobile readers can be a game changer for those who run on-thegobusinesses such as food trucks and on-site repair services, or do most of their sales from booths at trade shows, craft fairs, and markets.
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Is a Mobile Card Reader Right for Your Business? First, consider your customers’ purchasing attitudes and habits. Are they moving away from carrying cash and would appreciate the card option? If so, would they feel comfortable having their card swiped on a smartphone or tablet? General acceptance of cashless payment is constantly changing, so it’s hard to say how people will feel about it in a year or two, but you know your customers better than anyone else — give some thought to how they may react and adapt. Will adding a mobile payment option open up new revenue streams for your business? A tablet or smartphone card reader could allow you to make more sales in ways and in places you hadn’t been able to before. And the big question: Will your business make enough card-purchase sales to make a card reader, with its associated fees, financially viable? About Those Fees… Research your options when choosing a processing provider. In addition to banks, there are currently dozens of companies that specialize in processing mobile card purchases, including Intuit GoPayment, Square, Flagship ROAMpay, Leaders, PayAnywhere, and PayPal Here. As with any service, you’ll want to shop around and compare prices, plans, and make sure you’re dealing with a reputable company. You can also ask other business owners about their experiences with the companies they many be using and their opinions of the specific mobile card readers. You’ll have to decide if you want a pay-per-use(pay-asyou-go) or contract plan. A rough rule of thumb is that if your business will be processing less than $2,000 a month
in card-payment sales, you may want to consider pay per use. If, however, you do under $2,000 most months but have peak or spike periods when you go well over that, you’ll want to average out the year and see if a contract plan makes more sense in the long term. Be careful of hidden fees. Look at each processing company’s various rates and per-purchase processing fees, keeping an eye out for hidden fees that could kick in. Again, one of the primary factors will be the volume and average value of your card-purchase sales. If This Sounds Like a Good Fit for Your Business, What Will You Need to Get Started? Just as with a standard card-processing service, you’ll have to set up a merchant account. Additionally for a mobile account, the processing company will provide an e-commerce payment gateway that safely and securely completes the purchases. Obviously you’ll need a smartphone or tablet. You’ll have to decide, however, if you want a separate phone or tablet specifically for your business (with the extra cost of an additional service and data plan) or if you — and your customers — will feel comfortable using your personal mobile device. You’ll also want a card reader. It’s possible to simply type a customer’s card number into your phone or tablet, but it’s unlikely you’ll want to deal with that constant hassle and its potential for error. So you’ll probably want a portable card reader — a small piece of hardware that plugs into your device’s USB port and allows you to physically swipe a card. In most cases these card readers are provided by the processing company.
Make sure your equipment meets the minimum standards. When selecting a processing company, make sure their card-reader hardware and software is compatible with your current smartphone and/or tablet. Some companies’ devices work across a variety of systems, but others will only operate with the more popular devices. You’ll also have to download special software onto your device or an application that runs the processing, and you may need accounting software on your computer to handle the management reports that come with these services. Do you have the correct network connections? Some card processing services operate via your phone or tablet’s mobile network, but others require a Wi-Fi connection. If it’s the latter case, you’ll want to make sure you’ll always have reliable Wi-Fi service wherever you plan to use your mobile reader. Keep in mind that if you plan to have multiple clerks making transactions from several devices at the same time in your store, it could slow down Wi-Fi processing speeds. Take into consideration the processing provider’s training and tech support services. Will they help you learn how to use all their service’s options? Will you be able to easily contact them during or after business hours if you’re having problems, especially during the early stages of using their product? Make sure the answer to both of those questions is yes. For many small business operators, the question isn’t whether or not to accommodate cashless purchases but when and how. When looking at mobile tablet and smartphone credit card readers, take time to evaluate your business’ card-processing needs, research the available services and fees, and then choose the option that best fits your sales needs.
thecompanymag.com | 21
DIRECTION A Q&A WITH MAYOR MIKE SCHULTZ ON SOME OF BOERNE’S MOST PRESSING ISSUES. By Ben Schooley :: Photography by Ben Weber
To say that Boerne Mayor Mike Schultz has a lot on his plate is quite the understatement. Vice President of Sonora Banking Center by day, Schultz is also charged with leading the city through one of its more tumultuous times in history. Unparalleled growth, water scarcity, and a myriad of other issues is waiting for him each day in a city that is transforming almost daily. Some would say that he is handling most issues as best as can be expected, while others might find a lot to criticize. COMPANY magazine was able to sit down with Schultz and ask him some questions about these issues, how they’re being handled, and how some of the most pressing issues are being remedied. JOB ASSESSMENT COMPANY: Mr. Mayor, what grade would you give yourself? On a scale of A to F. MS: I’m not good at grading myself. I think this has been a privilege and honor to serve the people of Boerne and I do the very best that I can do each day. CITY COUNCIL ASSESSMENT COMPANY: If you had to grade the City Council, what would you give them? MS: I think for the most part that City Council members wake up with the same thing sitting in front of them. Although they are single member district elected, I don’t think I can say that at any time I saw one of them vote without considering the entire city. At the end of the day, they vote for Boerne, and not for their district. I think the other thing they’ve done well is they have asked themselves “What is the right thing to do?” We don’t always stay on track there, but it’s a refreshing place to start.
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GROWTH COMPANY: No other topic generates more discussion than that of GROWTH. How are we doing handling the growth? MS: The Trails of Herff Ranch: We have X amount built and X amount are left to be built. There are something like 5900 new lots on the drawing board for the city, and from my chair, in looking at others’ comments about growth, is that it seems to me that the message we get is that we’ve been out there actively pursuing the growth that’s coming to Boerne. People buy property, plan a development, and then come to us for utilities. That’s how we manage that growth, not only from the number of houses, but from considering what the utilities are that they are using. The phenomenon of people coming here in droves didn’t start 6 months ago, it started 25 years ago. As the reputation of our schools got out, and the community’s reputation got out, we’ve got people that want to be a part of that community.
been tweaked once in a while, but not to change up a whole section of town. That plan was put in place via citizen input and defined the areas where we would have growth and where we wouldn’t. That plan has been followed for the past 8 years, and every 10 years we re-address it, but that time for the citizen’s committee to re-look at it will be coming up soon. I don’t think as a city, as good as Boerne is, that you can decide something 8 years ago in a master plan about what the city will look like. We didn’t know Herff Road was going to be built, we didn’t know about some of our school locations, we didn’t know about the theatre. Those dynamics have changed the areas that come up for re-zone. The owner of the apartment land has all the right in the world to sell his property. The developer then has a right to come to us and have it re-zoned. That decision couldn’t be made 8 years ago. That’s why we have elected officials.
PLANNING COMPANY: As a layman, it would seem to me that the City could look at an aerial map of the city and design the way they wanted the city to look. Instead we tend to wait for a developer to ask for changes, and then respond accordingly. Why could we not proactively design the city and expect that the design be followed? MS: We have had a master plan since 2006. That plan has
RECENT ISSUE COMPANY: You bring up the recently denied request by a developer to bring in a new apartment complex. Were you pleased with the Council’s decision to decline that development? MS: Not necessarily, no. I thought that what we got involved with was wrapped up in too much emotion, and not enough rational thinking. I didn’t think the project was a
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bad one, but I think we should have talked about it more, and I think we should have talked about it more under clearer minds, and without the emotion. My personal opinion doesn’t matter much when I walk in that room. What I was hearing from businesses was “What are you doing to help for workforce?” BIG BUSINESS COMPANY: Boerne has historically struggled to get large employers here, and many believe this would be great for the community as it would provide local, high paying jobs. What is the City doing to address this? MS: I think affordable and available property is a problem. It’s supply and demand. The demand is high, and hence the price tag is high. For people to come in and develop it and make whatever they want it to be, they have to charge a high price to make all that work. When I talk to large businesses around here – BISD, Walmart, HEB, etc – about a third of their workforce comes from here, a third from SA, and a third from the surrounding areas. Every time gas goes up, those employers become concerned about being able to attract people from the outlying areas. We’ve got an occupancy rate of around 93% in our apartments. More of those are needed to bring the workforce, such as servers, cashiers, etc. To do all of those things, it takes a workforce.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING COMPANY: You’ve got a variety of housing developments in the area from Herff Ranch to Centex that many would consider affordable housing. Esperanza alone is approximately 2500 homes. Do we still need more “affordable housing”? MS: Yes, we need more. Anybody would argue with you if the 6000 coming are affordable housing. The blue collar worker coming here cannot afford a home at Trails of Herff Ranch or Esperanza. Those are $250,000+ homes. Where do the teachers live? Where do the policemen live? The server at the Cypress Grille? The mechanic? Where do they live? We need a balance, and we don’t have that yet. Duplexes and apartments is just one element. Boerne Heights is affordable housing. But when you compare that to the higher end homes, there is not a good balance there. I’m reluctant to even use the word affordable housing. Affordable housing is defined differently for each person. What’s affordable to you might not be affordable to me. When I go on business retention calls, they’re not looking at $300,000 homes in English Oaks. They’re looking for the $175,000 home or the $750 rent in the apartment. A lower rate than the guy you might bump into at the coffee shop might be living in. They’re not the mechanic, they’re not the server. But how do we get them here in this community? Some of them are, and we need more.
CITIZEN INPUT COMPANY: Everybody has an opinion. Some voice them at City Council meetings, and some simply voice them on Facebook. How do you manage all of the ways you receive input? MS: I manage that by hopefully hearing from the citizens of Boerne, and using every avenue available to do that. It is a team sport at the end of the day involving staff, council, and the citizens. I hear the citizens of Boerne however, say that they want ball fields, a good education for my kids, sidewalks, the trail system, alternate ways to have water available for greenscape. You don’t do that by putting a gate across I-10, unless the citizens ask us to go up 10% on my tax rate, but don’t let anybody else in here. I hear that people like Boerne, like the things that I have, and I want more. You can’t have a good school system if you don’t pass the school bond that passed recently. The citizens can’t bear the weight of that, and things like the bond bring that to the table. If you want to drop all of those things, then sure, put a gate up. But the citizens are not like that. They like what has been created, and they want more. WASTEWATER COMPANY: The City has approximately 12,000 residents currently. With the new growth, one could conservatively estimate another 18,000 new ones in the short term. We’ll be at near capacity on our wastewater plant at that time. What’s the city doing to plan for this? MS: We have 2 plants that are already working. We have our old plant, and our new one. Our best guess of what will happen with our 12,000 population today, is that in approximately 12 to 15 years we will have doubled to 24 to 26 thousand. If you talk to a developer, he’ll sell all of those 6000 houses in 7 years. Realistically, we’ve got a 12 year buildout. So we’ll be closer to capacity in 2026-2028. Council today is already researching what our capacity really is. What is our new form of water? What will take us beyond the 35,000 we’re looking at today? We’re in the chair of our forefathers and we are tasked with figuring this out. I suggest to you that the majority of the municipalities in our area are wishing they were in our position. What are some of the things we’re looking at? 1. How do we get new water here, either through GBRA or another source? 2. We have 3500 of the 4000 homes going in east of Boerne must be double plumbed and have re-used water for landscaping, washing their cars, and they must have it. We’re the only ones doing that.
TRAFFIC COMPANY: Traffic. Boerne’s traffic has gotten pretty bad recently. What’s the fix? MS: The Herff Road project should be completed in 2015. That will take 8,000-10,000 cars off of Main St. on a daily basis. You have $8.9 million that was awarded for the Cascade Caverns intersection. We are working with 3 different properties in place that before we annexed them, we created a 4 lane right of way that would create an outer loop around Boerne. There are still a couple of properties we’re working with to connect all those dots. Herff will help, the outer loop will help, and this past July 10th we had the first BISD, County Commissioners, and Council meeting to do nothing but address mobility. We’re talking to TxDot to finish up the north end of Herff road to figure out how to get 4 lanes out to Ammann Rd. Can we control some of our destiny by taking over Main Street as our responsibility and taking it away from TxDot? That hasn’t happened yet in terms of a discussion, but it might. Can we divert traffic from River to this outer loop? Yes, and we are talking about that. Blanco Rd. out past the high school, it’s 35mph out to the north side of the high school – TxDot controls that speed limit, but we’re talking about taking that over to help. TRAFFIC AND BUSINESS COMPANY: How has the traffic affected local retailers? MS: One of the things I hear from retailers is about the truck traffic. One of the things we can take over from Tx Dot with Main is that you won’t’ be able to run trucks down the main drag. The pedestrian traffic, the car traffic, the tourists – that’s what we want – we don’t need gravel trucks through downtown. UNDER THE RADAR COMPANY: What’s one issue that you don’t think gets the attention you think it should? MS: We struggle every day with traffic and growth. School St. is about ready to get fixed, but it’s not an ultimate fix. It’s a $500k fix, and I wish it was a $10 fix. These projects are so expensive. Water. Traffic. Growth. Our population’s water past 35k people. My job as mayor is to plan ahead for if and when those things happen. I can’t plan for today - I have to plan for tomorrow. More conversation should be directed at: I would like to see us recognize the importance of collaboration among many entities. City, county, BISD, EDC, downtown merchants…how important those collaborations are and what they will mean to the citizens of Boerne and Kendall Ccounty when the smoke clears. It’s important that thecompanymag.com | 25
we meet together, talk together, and plan together. I would like to see that continue, and for us all to see the good in that. I think they all see that, because we do all get together, and we’ve had a great start. If we don’t talk about them together, we’ll just complain about them at the coffee shop. COMMUNITY OPINIONS COMPANY: What kind of input do you get from citizens and businesses? Does it ever frustrate you? MS: I don’t ever find myself getting frustrated with the citizen of Boerne. I firmly believe that everybody, whether I agree with them or not, should be treated with civility and respect. Everyone has a voice, whether they use it or not. I don’t go down the street and grab people and tell them to go to City Council meetings. We get feedback from staff, who fields more feedback than anybody in terms of complaints, compliments, and feedback. I get just as many compliments as we get complaints. I get just as many pats on the back as I do complaints. The other source of that is why we have the meetings and the workshops – those council members constantly hear from the citizens, and it’s their job to bring that voice forward. Then you have your public hearings and we welcome people to come talk with us. Are we hearing from everyone? No – but are we getting a good idea of the feedback? Yes. ANNEXATION COMPANY: There are some that would probably say the City rarely, if ever, says NO to a development or annexation. When was the last time the City said NO? MS: We did that on the truck stop. That was said NO to before the citizens even knew it was proposed. That’s a good example of having a sense of what the people are looking for. That’s a good example. We’ve had some requests for manufacturing coming in that we knew were large water users. We don’t have any desire to promote or encourage that kind of industry here that is going to use a lot of water. We’ve said no to residential developers and commercial developers that have wanted to have large unreasonable tax rebates or incentives to bring their businesses here. We’re not going to give away the farm. We do a complete ROI analysis on every request that comes. We have
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a criteria that we follow and if we don’t feel like it’s going to work, it’s not going to work. It all gets vetted publicly, through council, through public attention, and gets voted as it should. SMALL BUSINESS GROWTH COMPANY: How does the city help Small Business grow and expand? MS: First you asked how do we stop everyone from coming here? And now you’re asking me how to help growth? There’s a process to follow to make sure that it is the right kind of business, are we following the zoning, ordinances, policies, tree ordinances, and everything else that the citizens have come to expect. Our sign ordinance – the 1 ordinance that I hear the most complaints about is also the one that I hear the most THANK YOUS over is our sign ordinance. People can’t understand why we put such an emphasis on signs. People tell me all the time how nice it is to drive through town and not see the clutter of unregulated signage. We’ve set a standard for how we’re going to perform, and I think city staff is following what they’re doing when you open a business. They’re simply following the rules that we’ve set in place that have been followed for years. We’ve got developers coming in that haven’t dealt with Boerne before and they say ‘This isn’t how SA does it, the Valley, or Austin’ – and we say ‘You’re right – this is how we’re going to do it, and if you don’t like it, go develop somewhere else’. Yes, we might be a bit of a pain as you get your infrastructure in, but we’re doing it the right way and we’re doing it responsibility. We don’t compromise on how things will be done when you go in to make a new development. We know what works. LEGACY COMPANY: What do you think your legacy will be, Mike? What will be said about you in 40 years? MS: (laughs) They won’t be talking about me in 2040! I want them to say that I was fair. I was civil, respectful, and that I made sure everyone had a voice, whether I agreed with it or not. A mayor during at time that we had unprecedented growth, we were dutiful to what the citizens of Boerne, our ordinances, resolutions, and everything else said that we should do, and that I was always trying to do the right thing.
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LEGAL |
YOU HAVE PURCHASED INSURANCE FOR YOUR BUSINESS, BUT ARE YOU REALLY COVERED? By Shannon Loyd
I see it often – a business owner brings me his or her insurance policy and a claim denial letter and asks me to explain the reason for the denial of coverage. Sometimes the claim has been wrongfully denied; but more often than not, the policy simply does not afford the coverage they thought they had. This article touches on some types of insurance policies and limitations, exclusions and endorsements which limit coverage. Basic insurance coverage that most business owners purchase include commercial property coverage for the actual building, the personal property owned by the business, and for loss of business revenue due to a covered loss (called business interruption), and general liability coverage for legal defense and indemnification for damages if the busi28 | COMPANY MAGAZINE
ness, its employees or its products or services are alleged to have caused injury or property damage to a third party. A specialized type of coverage is professional liability insurance (“PL”) or errors and omissions insurance (“E&O”) (the insurance industry uses the terms interchangeably), which is coverage designed to protect traditional professionals (e.g., certified public accountants) and quasi-professionals (e.g., real estate brokers) against liability incurred as a result of errors and omissions in performing professional services for clients or customers. Both PL and E&O policies cover economic losses suffered by third parties but not property damage — which is typically covered under your general liability policy. Most PL and E&O policies exclude coverage for bodily injury — with the key exception of
professional liability/medical malpractice for doctors. It is important to understand that most PL and E&O policies are written as “claimsmade,” which means the policy only covers claims filed during the policy period. A few companies offer occurrence-based policies, which cover any qualifying claim arising from an incident that occurred during the policy period—no matter when filed. Insurance policies typically cover either specified losses (called “specified peril” policies) where coverage is afforded only for the types of losses listed in the policy, or all losses (called “all-risk” policies) where every type of loss is covered unless it is specifically limited or excluded. Clearly, the term “all-risk” can be misleading because each policy will have an entire section devoted to listing coverage limitations and losses that are excluded. For example, most commercial property policies exclude loss caused by wear and tear or failure to conduct proper maintenance on a building, and most liability policies exclude loss caused by intentional acts by employees. As well, insurance policies typically include endorsements which can limit or take away coverage that is clearly provided within the policy. In other words, the policy may provide coverage and then the endorsement limits it or completely takes it away. The policy endorsements are listed on the declarations page and can be found either right behind it or at the end of the policy. Every business owner should make sure the procuring agent fully explains each and every limitation, exclusion and endorsement in the policy so that the coverage is tailored to fit the needs of the business. Texas law assumes that policy holders have read and agreed to the terms and conditions in the policy; therefore, upon receiving the actual policy from the insurance company, business owners should read the policy, or at least the limitations, exclusions and endorsements in the policy and immediately notify the procuring agent if the coverage is not what was promised and purchased.
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TAX |
BIG CHANGES TO THE TRANSPORTATION AND OTHER INDUSTRIES FOR TEXAS MARGIN TAX By Jason Carlettini
In March of 2014, a landmark case was decided that would change the landscape of Texas Margin Tax and the taxation of the Transportation Industry, hopefully forever. Before this case was decided, the Transportation Industry felt it was treated unfairly by the Secretary of State interpretation of the franchise tax law, thereby, forcing these companies to pay more taxes. Given the recent ruling, it may be prudent to examine your past franchise filings to determine if you have any refunds that you may claim. This case may have an impact on other industries in the future. A little background: In 2006, the legislation was passed that changed the way Texas taxed businesses. This new legislation included a taxation upon partnerships and other business entities that were previously not taxed. The franchise tax was replaced with the margin tax for all returns that were due after January 1, 2008. Businesses were given a few options on how to report their margin tax. They would be required to report 100% of their gross revenues, have a few select exclusions/deductions from gross revenue, and then choose to deduct the following items from their gross revenue to arrive at taxable margin: Costs of Goods Sold (COGS) Compensation 30% of Total Revenue The net margin tax was then multiplied by the apportionment factor and then multiplied by the State tax rate - .5% for retail/wholesale and 1% for all other companies. With this method for determining margin tax, many companies had to pay margin tax even when they had a net loss for the full year. Here is how the margin tax applies to the transportation industry prior to this ruling: The Texas Comptroller initially determined that the Transportation Industry is a service provider industry and issued 30 | COMPANY MAGAZINE
a Tax Policy newsletter in August 2010 explaining this determination. Based on their assessment of the service related industry, they determined that transportation companies were not entitled to a COGS deduction. This meant that the Transportation Industry could only rely on the remaining two (2) deduction categories, which are the Compensation deduction and the 30% of Total Revenue deduction. The Compensation deduction would allow the company to deduct payments made to employees as long as they didn’t exceed $300,000 per employee (adjusted to $350,000 in 2013 for inflation.) This is a great deduction, but what if you don’t have any employees; instead choosing to pay sub-contractors to do the transportation? Payments made to Form 1099 recipients are not included in this category. The answer is you do not get a deduction for any sub-contractor payments. If all your employees are sub-contractor labor, then you are left with the only remaining choice of the 70% of Total Revenue method. This created a very large amount of margin tax due on an Industry that normally runs on very tight margins. In some cases margin tax due was more than the net income produced for the year. For example, let’s assume your company grossed $15 million, paid mostly through sub-contractors, and was in the transportation industry. The result would be a State margin tax of $105,000 (15,000,000 * 70% * 1% tax rate). We know from working with transportation companies that nearly 85% - 90% of their revenue is funneled to the sub-contractors and the business may make only 10% - 15% net revenue on these contracts. This in effect is taxation on gross revenue that the transportation companies never truly receive. $105,000 is a lot of money to pay the state in this example. This treatment has been in effect since 2008. In March 2014, a case, which was brought by a client of Akin, Doherty, Klein & Feuge, P.C. (ADKF), was settled favorably for the taxpayer. This ruling eliminated the disparity that exists within the Transportation Industry, which denied companies the ability to deduct and/or exclude sub-contractor payments. Titan Transportation, LP vs Susan Combs, Comptroller of Public Accounts, was decided in appeals by the Texas Court of Appeals, Third District. Titan Transportation initially excluded the payments made to
their transportation sub-contractors under the Franchise Tax Statute 171.1011(g)(3) that states the following: A taxable entity shall exclude from its total revenue, to the extent [reported to the federal IRS as income] only the following flow-through funds that are mandated by contract or subcontract to be distributed to other entities… (3) subcontracting payments made under a contract or subcontract entered into by the taxable entity to provide services, labor, or materials in connection with the actual or proposed design, construction, remodeling, remediation, or repair of improvements on real property or the location of the boundaries of real property. The State of Texas initially denied the exclusion, stating, as a transportation company, Titan Transportation did not contribute any improvements to real property. Titan successfully countered that argument by proving the material they carry, aggregates and concrete materials, is essential to construction and impacts the real property as well as changes the topography of the property. Titan Transportation brought in experts, including a CPA from ADKF, who supported these claims. The State’s initial denial of the exclusion was reversed and Titan Transportation won the case for themselves and the industry. As a result of the success of this appeal, there will be a benefit for the entire Transportation Industry. Likewise, the Texas Margin Tax will no longer punish the transportation companies that choose to hire sub-contractors for hauling. Transportation companies need to revisit their franchise tax filings and determine if they need to amend any forms to take advantage of the recent changes. Remember, the statute of limitations for filing amended forms within Texas is four (4) years, so, double check and see if you are leaving any money on the table! If we can help assist you with this project please feel free to contact Rene Garcia or Howard Klein, CPA
thecompanymag.com | 31
COMPANY magazine is published by Schooley Media Ventures in Boerne, TX. COMPANY Magazine and Schooley Media Ventures are not responsible for any inaccuracies, erroneous information, or typographical errors contained in this publication submitted by advertisers. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the opinions of COMPANY and/ or Schooley Media Ventures. Copyright 2013 Schooley Media Ventures, 930 E. Blanco, Boerne, TX 78006
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FAMILY MATTERS BOERNE SPORTS AND FAMILY MEDICINE p.38
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ALAMO HOSPICE p 36 SUNSCREEN: NATURAL OR CHEMICAL? p 44 ARE YOU HAPPY? p 46 AFFORDABLE CARE ACT REALITY p 48
30 YEARS EXPERIENCE 806 N. Main St. • Boerne 830-249-7870 • www.drchethawkins.com
As a Master in the Academy of General Dentistry, Dr. Chet Hawkins posses the highest level of education recognized for a dentist. As a graduate of the Pankey Institute, he’s had the finest post-doctoral training in the world. “I want to establish a master plan and then develop a blueprint for my patients’ long-term care,” he explains. “We want to solve the causes of the problems before we do anything else to their teeth. Then we can rebuild or repair with confidence that the fix will last as long as possible. We also educate our patients about other health issues related to oral disease. There is a connection between periodontal disease and heart disease that people need to know about.” Dr. Hawkins and his wife, Deby, have been residents of Boerne for 7 years and are excited to serve the residents of Boerne.
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The moment you enter “the office you are greeted by
Kim’s warm smile and friendly personality. The hygienists are professional and make you feel very at ease. Dr. Hawkins is very calm and soft spoken with a gentle touch. The office runs very smoothly and on time for appointments.” - Charlotte
“I Can’t Live with Excruciating Foot And Leg Pain”
Announcing A New High Tech Method For The Treatment of Peripheral Neuropathy and Type II Diabetes Symptoms... Because of the almost immediate type of pain relief, I had to have one of these deep tissue treatments in my facility no matter what the cost. I invested and implemented this new treatment that utilizes cold laser healing and pain relieving therapies.
“Doc, I can’t live with this excruciating foot and leg pain!”
I traveled to another state and enrolled in extensive training. My staff and I witnessed some amazing reductions and eliminations of some of the worst pain syndromes I had ever seen… And it was FAST! After just a few minutes of treatment on patients with extreme and chronic pain of the worst kind, including neuropathy of the feet and legs, we had patients telling us how their pain levels had decreased and they were shocked. Some of them had their pain even alleviated after only one treatment.
When you hear this from a patient it gets your attention. Typically, I get the worst of the worst pain patients but when I recently heard this exclamation, my attention was particularly peaked. Let’s call this patient Bob. Bob is 62 years old with neuropathy in his hands and feet. He had poorly controlled Type II Diabetes and his life was literally as he described it “a living hell.” Clearly he was coming to the end of his rope. The nerves in his legs and feet were damaged and he was in HORRIBLE CONSTANT PAIN.
He complained to me, “I can’t sleep at night because my legs feel like they are being eaten by little bugs or chewed on by small animals.”
He told me that he could not go on living with this constant, debilitating pain that had made every day a tragedy. I had to help this man! I recently was fortunate enough to accidentally discover a new noninvasive and non-drug treatment for severe and constant foot and leg pain caused by neuropathy. I learned about a new type of non-surgical and painless laser-like high tech treatment that was working wonders with severe, constant chronic pain, including pain caused by Neuropathy. It had the ability to quickly increase circulation to an area (much needed in a neuropathy patient). It could reduce and/or eliminate pain in as little as a few treatments and was changing the lives of patients with severe debilitating pain in offices across the nation.
So just how can you see if Dr. McKay’s Neuropathy Pain Relief treatment will help you to reduce or eliminate your foot or leg pain? For a limited number of callers (we are limiting this to the first 27 callers due to the response to this type of offer), we are now offering our unique 7-Point FREE Evaluation…
FREE 7-Point Leg and Foot Neuropathy Evaluation!
“I Can’t Sleep at Night!”
During the day, he could hardly walk and every step sent shooting pain like lightning from his toes and up his legs up almost to his knees. He had numbness in his feet and couldn’t feel his feet very well and had terrible balance problems. He was worried he might fall and injure himself.
“I drove 120 miles to get this treatment because I had not been able to feel my feet for 15 years. I work on a farm and I would stumble and fall because I could not feel the ground under my feet. I’m getting older and I can’t afford to fall and break something. After the treatments, I was able to feel my feet and toes again. Now for the first time in over a decade I have feelings in my feet. “ Patient M.H., Age 85
We were able to reduce or even eliminate neuropathy pain of the worst kind. Using the latest and most recent tech-nologies, I now offer a noninvasive, non surgical and painless neuropathy pain treatment. I help patients reduce or even eliminate their neuropathy pain using nutritional therapies, deep tissue super-pulsed cold laser treatments, combined with specific non-surgical, non-invasive, relaxing re-integration and stimulation treatments of peripheral nerves using whole body vibration to increase their function quickly.
Here’s what some patients have said about the treatments: “I was on 14 medications and my doctors had told me I may need to have my foot amputated. I hadn’t been able to wear shoes other than sandals for years because of my swollen and painful feet. After going through this program I’ve lost weight and my foot pain is gone. I can now wear normal shoes.” Patient, N.S., Age 58
During your free evaluation, you will be checked for: • Foot and Leg Circulation • Nerve Sensitivity • Pain Fiber Receptors • Thermal Receptors • Pressure Receptor • Light Touch Sensitivity • Nutritional Sensitivities Once you’ve been evaluated fully and completely with our very thorough Neuropathy Treatment Evaluation, we will know if you are a candidate for this new painless and effective Neuropathy Pain Relief Program. Call our office right away to qualify for one of the 27 Free Neuropathy Evaluation Appointments!
C A L L T O D AY F o r F RE E E v a l u a t i o n (210) 694-LIFE Dr. Nigel McKay, Chiropractor 9023 Huebner Rd, Suire 105, San Antonio, TX 78240 www.saneuropathycare.com
PRACTICE PROFILE |
ALAMO HOSPICE
Name: Erin Hicks, RN Years with Company: 10 Company Founded: 2006 Title: Executive Director What is your favorite part of your industry? When we travel around Boerne and our surrounding Hill Country community, we see family. Family is at the core of Alamo Hospice. We help our patients and their families write their last 180 days story. Our work is all about helping patients and their loved ones resolve unfulfilled dreams and find peace with their life experience. We provide a level of care that allows these families to step away from the often intense and stressful world of providing day-to-day care during illness and instead focus on finding completion, resolution and fulfillment. We relieve burdens for patients and caregivers and provide the opportunity for our patients to gain a sense of completion in their lives. The end of life experience offers important opportunities for growth, intimacy, reconciliation and closure in relationships. We are there to bring our patients and their families together in an environment that encourages this type of communication and growth. We also help our patients achieve “bucket list” type experiences and last wishes. For a number of our patients their end-of-life wish includes the desire to regain their sense of personal dignity. By giving our patients control of their endof-life experience, Alamo is able to return patient dignity and simplify their health care experience. We also extend this care to a larger family, our Boerne community. Alamo has made taking care of our community the mission of our agency. That’s what family does. Our office on West Bandera Road is located heart of Boerne, making it convenient to residents who often come to us as a resource for education and support. Almost every Alamo team member resides in Boerne including our Medical Director, Dr. Ben Stahl. Dr. Stahl has his own family practice in Boerne and is engaged with Alamo patients and their families. Thanks to our location, Alamo hosts bi-weekly meetings in our offices where family members and caregivers can meet with their care team and Dr. Stahl in person to discuss their loved one’s care. We consider ourselves Boerne’s “hometown hospice”. Most Boerne physicians 36 | COMPANY MAGAZINE
often recommend their loved ones to our care. Having this connection with our community means that we have the opportunity to help our patients, who are also our neighbors and friends have the end-of-life experience they desire and deserve, and that is by far the best part of working in the hospice industry. What is the most challenging part of your industry? Choosing hospice can be a difficult decision for anyone, especially when patients really do not understand what hospice actually is or what we actually do. At Alamo, our goal is “more hospice for more people”. In order to reach our goal, we work to educate our community and health care providers about the real benefits of hospice and why choosing hospice earlier is often a much better choice for patients and their families. Alamo provides complete concierge palliative care. We care for patients and their families beyond the diagnosis, during illness and after the end-of-life. Our team is working all the time to educate the community about the comprehensive end-of-life care hospice provides. Hospice addresses every aspect of a patient’s care, physical, mental and spiritual. Most people have no idea that we have chaplains who visit patients, team members with expertise in pain management, caregivers who provide physical and emotional care, complimentary services such as massage and art therapy, as well as bereavement care for family members in the first year after the loss of their loved one. Community education, helping people really understand what hospice actually does for patients and their families will continue to challenge our team. How has Boerne supported your business? Community support is integral to the success of Alamo Hospice. As Boerne grows and changes, Alamo is growing and changing. The Boerne community has really stepped forward and offered an incredible level of support to our Alamo team. As a founding member of the Boerne Area Coalition for Healthcare, Alamo was given the opportunity to partner with other Boerne area health care providers focused on helping our community members connect with the comprehensive health care services right here in Boerne. So often people in our community believe they need to leave
the Boerne area in order to locate the health care services they need. Our goal is to connect Boerne patients with Boerne health care providers. We are also focused on the changing health care needs of our community, making sure that we have all the health care resources Boerne citizens need available to them here, in our community. Alamo is proud to be a part of this community of care. And we are honored that we can help our neighbors spend their end-oflife journey in the place they call home. We are so proud of our amazing teams of Boerne volunteers. The Alamo “Happy Hookers” knit beautiful blankets, mittens, shawls and scarves for our hospice patients. These incredible women donate their talents and time to keeping our patients warm and comfortable. Recently, Alamo team members had the idea to start providing a “birthday crown”
to patients celebrating birthdays. The Happy Hookers stepped right in and knitted birthday crowns for each patient to wear on their special day. Another group of Boerne area volunteers collect flowers from florist and vendors, repurposing them into beautiful bouquets they make and deliver to Alamo patients, brightening their day and warming their hearts. We have also experienced a great show of support from community companies and organizations. Alamo recently hosted a city-wide “Celebration of Life” event. We partnered with a local church, several Boerne companies and organizations to host a special evening where those in our area who are grieving could come together to support one another and to celebrate the lives of their loved ones. It was a beautiful event and a terrific opportunity to come together with the Boerne community to support those who have experienced loss. We also have wonderful hospice advocates in our community. Members of the Boerne health care community and others who really understand our mission and work to connect us with patients and who need our care. What are the future plans for your business? In the future we will continue to focus on community care and outreach in order to make our neighbors really aware of what hospice actually means; sharing the special and typi-
cally unexpected outcomes and benefits of hospice. So often hospice care is only thought of in a very rigid definition of service. People typically see hospice as providing medical care and supplies to people who are in the end-of-life, period. In reality our work reaches beyond what people assume they know about hospice. For example, recently Alamo team members caring for two different families, connected the two husbands who were providing care for their wives with the same terminal illness. Thanks to our team making the connection, the men served as a special source of comfort and support during their wives’ illnesses. Now the two men are golfing partners who help each other cope with their recent loss. We communicate beyond a patient’s diagnosis, learn about their lives and work with their families. So, making these unique connections, providing patients with special moments, restoring personal dignity, bringing family members and patients together for reconciliation, as well as and reaching out to caregivers after the loss of their loved one for grief support are all benefits of our services that most people do not realize they receive with hospice care and are surprised and relieved to experience. Also, as the Boerne community grows and the needs of our Veteran population increases, our team is will continue to focus on the care of Boerne’s veterans. Veterans are a huge part of the Hill Country community. Through their service, Veterans have developed unique care requirements.
Alamo recruits volunteers who are also veterans, have similar backgrounds and common experiences to work with area Veterans. In our effort to become experts in Veteran care, Alamo is proud to be a member of the We Honor Veteran’s Program. The program is a collaboration of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) and the Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA). The We Honor Veteran’s Program develops specialized training to educate hospice care providers like Alamo about the special care requirements for veterans and their families. Through the specialized training we have received with the We Honor Veteran’s Program, we can bring a higher level of expertise to the care of Boerne’s Veterans and their families. We are also committed to honoring the service of Veterans, holding special pinning ceremonies for Veteran residents of facilities and communities across our area. Each Veteran is recognized and receives a special pin denoting their service. Family members of Veterans can also participate honoring their loved ones while receiving pins on their behalf. Alamo team members lead the often emotional and uplifting Veteran’s events and invite people from across the Hill Country community to participate. By maintaining a presence in our community and a focus on outreach and education, we feel we will be prepared for whatever the future brings to our area. As Boerne grows we will be here to care for everyone in need of hospice in our community. In what ways have legislative changes affected your business? As the health care landscape continues to change Alamo’s commitment to quality end-of-life care and to community support and education remains constant. Recent changes in health care have affected the health care community as a whole, including hospice care. We are all working with less while experiencing a higher demand for our services. With lower reimbursement rates impacting the entire health care spectrum, over-extended health care providers do not have the time or the resources to really identify their patients who might be in need of Alamo’s care. These physicians, nurses and health care administrators cannot make the time to have end-of-life discussions with their patients. As a result, there is a communication gap between the patients who really need hospice care now and the people with the expertise to identify those patients and introduce them to our team. In response, we are ramping up our education efforts and intensifying our commitment to connecting patients and their families with the hospice care they need. We remain focused on our goal of “more hospice for more people” not only as our business, but as a service to our community. thecompanymag.com | 37
38 | COMPANY MAGAZINE
FAMILY MATTERS By Krystal Mathis :: Photography By Ben Weber
Lots of people talk about family. How important family is; how we need to spend time with, care for, and appreciate our family members, even the ones who sometimes drive us crazy. There is one Boerne family that takes placing family first to a level that puts most of us to shame! Welcome to the amazing family-centered world of the Doctors McCurley and their shared medical practice, Sports and Family Medicine of Boerne. This special clinic is more than just a place to soothe a cold or help heal a sprained ankle. It’s a place where the McCurley family cares for the medical needs of other families. But let’s start at the beginning of this love story – a love story for the happy couple, their love of medicine, and their love of the families that they treat. And a love story that resulted in a clinic that is “one-stop shop” for families needing care in the Boerne area. Dr. Charles McCurley is the head physician of Sports and Family Medicine of Boerne. Before he was a doctor, Charles was just a kid born and raised in Houston, Texas. Charles’s family works in real estate, so Charles thought he would continue in the family business. He went to the University of Texas and majored in finance. And that’s where his world changed forever. All thanks to a lovely young lady named Wendy. Wendy, who would also become Dr. McCurley one day, was majoring in finance at UT as well. She always had an interest in medicine, because her father is a doctor, but she was focusing on business education for the time being. She says, “I was the doctor’s daughter in a small town where he was the family physician. I used to go on rounds with my dad and I loved it. But I wasn’t sure I was ready to tackle medical school, and my Dad suggested I work on something else first.”
Wendy’s decision to study “something else first,” was where fate stepped in and changed their lives. Charles explains, “After I met Wendy in college, I asked her to marry me six months after. We both got our degrees in finance, and as I did commercial real estate, Wendy worked in sales for a computer company.” While Charles had what many would consider an ideal job, he still wanted more. “I didn’t feel like I was making a difference. It was a good job, but I didn’t feel like ‘wow, I did something good today’ at the end of each day. I definitely met a lot of fun, great people, I played a lot of golf, but I was getting somewhat disenchanted.” “After spending more time with Wendy’s family (which includes 2 other doctors), I decided I want to go to med school. And Wendy said, ‘If you’re doing it, I’m doing it!’” Of course, Wendy also had her own reasons to want to study medicine. “Being the daughter of a small town family practitioner was very impactful. My father’s job wasn’t just a job, it was a big part of our life. He was the small-town doctor; he was the team doctor for every Conroe school sporting team. I would go to the hospital with him and make rounds. Subconsciously it left a huge impression because Dad loved his job and never seemed to complain about it. Of course,” Wendy adds, “all of this was possible because Mom was a stay-at-home mom.” These two are always thinking about family! So it was on to tackle the daunting prospect of medical school, starting with biology at UT. Wendy adds, “For us, majoring in finance, we first had to go back and get all the prerequisites before medical school. Somehow we packed all that into about a year and a half. Now that was a crazy time! So many labs…”
After that it was off to med school at the University of Texas Health Science Center. Yes, for both of them! Wendy says, “Charles and I are a package deal, so we knew we wanted to go to school together. We applied to all the Texas medical schools, but we really liked the program there. Plus it was near family and we thought we wanted to end up back in this part of Texas.” After completing their training at UTHSC, it was time to focus on a specialty and work on a residency. Charles says “When deciding what type of medicine we wanted to practice, we both liked the idea of a family medicine. If you think about the doctors that have impacted you personally, that is typically some sort of primary care medicine. Family medicine was always a draw because we both wanted to be that trusted friend and advocate that a person can rely on for their family’s health.” “Also,” says Wendy, “we gravitated towards long-term relationships with patients because that’s important to us. We also knew we wanted to live in a smaller town, so family medicine made sense.” “After UTHSC, we both went on to do our residency in Waco, and that was a great experience,” Charles says. “It’s the oldest family medicine residency in the Western United States. There’s no other family practices in the entire county, so we saw a little bit of everything. It was a very, very good place to experience family medicine.” They experienced something else while in Waco, the birth of their first child: a son, Charles, Jr. “At that point, I knew I wanted to be in family medicine, but I also was very interested in sports medicine. I grew up playing all sports and liking athletics, and I had to deal with some sports medicine issues myself. I mean I played baseball, basketball, football, and I ran track so I was always dinged up in some capacity. I never needed any surgeries, but I did have
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to do physical therapy or rehab for nagging injuries. I have always loved sports, and once I got into med school and then in residency, I realized that sports medicine is something I should know how to do.” “I was lucky enough to get into Sports Medicine Associates of San Antonio for a fellowship. It’s an amazing practice that takes care of the Spurs, and colleges here in town. They really taught me sports medicine. When you walk into a situation with a baseline, surface knowledge of a topic, and walk out feeling like you can handle anything, that’s pretty rare. It was such a great experience. Yes, I did a lot of basic work, I was manpower, but I feel like it was a give-take relationship. Ultimately they provided me with the tools to be a sports medicine specialist and now they are a resource. I stay in touch with them on a regular basis.” You can’t talk about one Dr. McCurley without talking about the other one, so what was Wendy doing while Charles was working on his fellowship? She was working on their truly adorable family. “While Charles was doing his fellowship, I stayed home, which was a great time for me because Charles Jr. was 15 months and during residency we were both working, so it was a fun year to be at home. As it would turn out, I ended up pregnant with twins at the end of the year!” As Charles finished his fellowship, they decided it was time to tackle getting their joint practice set up, and they decided they wanted it to be where they had called home for a while at that point, Boerne. Charles explains, “When we were thinking about where we wanted to be permanently, we knew we wanted to be in the Hill Country We always loved the Boerne area, so we just decided 40 | COMPANY MAGAZINE
to make a run at it.” Wendy adds, “We wanted to start from scratch by ourselves so we needed a community that was thriving. And since we already lived here and loved it here, it made sense. It’s also central to a lot of our family members.” “Basically,” Wendy says, “we started getting things together for this practice the start of 2013. It took us about six months to get doors open, and now it’s been almost a year since we opened. That means our practice and the girls were born at the same time. It’s almost comical that that’s how things happened. We had never considered we would have twins, and certainly not twins who would be born at the same time as we finally had the practice open. The good thing about it,” Wendy says, “is that everything else from now on will seem doable in comparison.” As Charles was finishing up his fellowship, he spent a lot of time thinking about how he wanted to focus on his sports medicine specialty. “I learned personally that ultimately I didn’t like the operating room. I don’t like standing still for several hours to do one thing. I like to be up and moving around and seeing and talking to patients! But the vast majority of sports injuries are not surgical injuries. And sports medicine is an integral part of family medicine that most doctors don’t feel comfortable treating. It’s not common to focus on both family and sports medicine, but now I can’t imagine practicing family medicine without the sports medicine training I received.” “When you look at sports medicine from the family practitioner’s perspective, you see all of the things that family medicine practitioners usually see and that people deal with all the time, like sprained ankles, knee injuries, and more. But usually most family practitioners don’t have the volume to handle it at a really advanced level. Family practitioners who are certified specialists in sports medicine by the American Board of Family Medicine are not very common. In fact, I’m the only guy in Kendall County.” “I love being the go-to guy for any sports medicine issue. I’m not a surgeon, and sometimes a non-surgeon’s perspective on something is important. Non-surgical is the way to go with most sports injuries. Some surgeries are no longer valid if you look at a macro view of medicine. There are surgeries done 20 years ago that you wouldn’t do today. If someone needs surgery, I can assist with getting them the care they need, but it’s never a problem to go to someone who won’t take you to the Operating Room.” For sports medicine, Charles says he sees “patients who then bring me their high-school athlete like their football-
playing son or volleyball-playing daughter who has a sports injury. Or we might see the guy who is playing golf with retired buddies and need to fix knee arthritis.” And Knee arthritis, according to Charles, “Is a big deal. One of the really cool things we do are gel shots for knee arthritis, and it’s a great management tool. It can serve as an alternative to knee replacement surgery. Basically it’s a lubrication for the internal side of the knee. The injections are made of platelet-rich plasma which is a cutting edge tool. This is something your typical internist or family doctor isn’t going to be able to offer. People would normally see orthopedist and utilize more surgical tools. But this can help avoid a knee replacement altogether. We can kick it down the road and really kick it down the road forever.” At Sports and Family Medicine of Boerne, Charles says, “Ultimately, my goal is to take good care of the families of Boerne and to do that we need to take care of everything they might need. The beauty of family medicine is that it teaches you how to do everything except surgeries. It teaches you how to manage stitches, repair ingrown toenails, and more. We do all that here, and then when you need a sports doctor, you already know me and are already comfortable with me.” Charles adds, “The people of Kendall County should know that they can trust what I say. I’m good at being real with people. I don’t sugarcoat things, and I think people appreciate that. I tell it like it is in the clinic and I try to intervene in the least invasive way possible. We do a lot of things to ourselves that are pretty counterproductive. But if they’re in my office for any reason we will explore all the options so they will be well-informed. No patient will leave my office thinking ‘what is going on?’” Wendy, meanwhile, focuses on other things within their practice. “By default, I see a lot of kids and women, because usually guys go to Charles. I love seeing kids and women! But I do still get to see the guys who come in, too. I also like focusing on some cosmetic things. Right now, we do botox and facial peels, and will soon be doing dermal fillers.” Charles says that their patient base is “very diverse. We do see a lot of sports and primary care though. For example, I saw 24 patients yesterday, 13 of whom were sports medicine. We love meet a lot of interesting people here, people from all over the country who have moved here or retired here.” The ultimate focus for the McCurley’s practice is family; both their own and the families they treat. Charles says, “At our practice, we treat all ages from a newborn’s very first visit home from the hospital, to end of life care, and then sports medicine in between. We get to enjoy the family. We
are literally taking care of 3 generations of patients from the same family. When it comes down to it, family is the reason I do this. If someone was to say identify yourself, I’d say I’m a family man. It’s my favorite thing in life. I’ve been married for 11 years, I have 3 phenomenal children. For me and for Wendy, the work/life balance is really important. It’s one of the things that everyone struggles with, but doctors in particular are at risk for working ourselves to death, b/c there really is no end in sight. I really keep that in mind when I’m scheduling my life. I need to be there for my kids. My job as a parent is one of the most important jobs I have.” Likewise, Wendy works about 2 days-a-week at Sports and Family Medicine of Boerne right now. She is going to be adding a third day soon, but says that spending time at home with their family, as her mother did before her, is very important to her. Like their kids, the practice will grow. Wendy says “We would love to hire a part-time Physician’s Assistant or Doctor to fill in when I’m not there. Maybe another woman because a lot of my patients prefer seeing a female.” Eventually, the doctors would like to grow their practice even further, utilizing more of their large space or growing into more space. If you ask this family with a plan where they will be in a few years, the answer is simple. “We will still be here, providing a service to this community.” In fact, Charles says that you can count on the fact that “We will be here forever because I would never walk away from the families that I care for… Or,” he adds with a smile, “from the Mount Everest of work that it took to get this place set up!”
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What is hospice?
Hospice is not a place, but rather a philosophy of care focused on providing comfort to individuals with life limiting illness. Alamo Hospice focuses on physical, mental, social, and spiritual well-being for patients, their families, and their support network. We provide care to patients in their own homes, assisted living facilities, and other community-based care settings.
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Hometown delivery of service • Mission-driven, Active community resource, Local decisions, Local leadership and staff. • Local Medical Director Ben Stahl MD National reach • Recognized “model program” for quality care, Boerne “Best of the Best” • National recognized accredited prepared program. Team approach to care • Access to 24 hr. care by the hospice team to include; Physician, Registered Nurses, Social Workers, Spiritual care coordinators, Bereavement counselors, Dieticians, Pharmacists, Hospice aides, Various therapists (massage, pet, PT, OT, ST), and Volunteers.
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830-816-5518 128 W. Bandera Road, Suite 4 • Boerne, TX • www.mrinowtx.com thecompanymag.com | 43
HEALTHY LIVING |
SUNSCREEN NATURAL OR CHEMICAL? By Leigh Ann Grasso, PharmD, RPh, Annie’s Apothecary Wearing sunscreen during extended sun exposure seems like a no brainer. So why is it people can never figure out the proper way to protect their skin? Forgetting to reapply, not using the right spf or not using it at all are common mistakes that can have damaging results. A good resource for sunscreen selections is The Environmental Working Group at www.ewg.org. Did you know that only 1/3 of the sunscreens marketed this summer actually offer good skin protection and are free of ingredients with serious safety concerns? EWG’s assessment determined that 2/3 of those sunscreens analyzed don’t work well enough or contain ingredients that may be toxic. Be sure to look up your favorite sunscreen on their website to see if it passed their safety test. High SPF can also give a false sense of sun protection. Sky-high SPF numbers are no measure of sunscreen effectiveness. A sunscreen’s sun protection factor, or SPF, measures its ability to deflect skin burning UV rays, primarily UVB rays. The SPF value does not reflect the product’s ability to filter out UVA rays that, according to a growing body of evidence, cause skin damage, immune suppression and possibly melanoma. Studies show that people who use high-SPF products are exposed to as many or more ultraviolet rays than those who use lower-SPF products. Because of the false sense of sun protection, many people don’t reapply as often and spend too much time in the sun. 44 | COMPANY MAGAZINE
The form of sunscreen is also important. Sprays have gained popularity due to ease of application, but they don’t all have FDA’s approving nod. EWG states that in 2011 FDA said it lacked data to confirm that spray products are safe and effective. It asked manufacturers to provide proof that sprays form a layer of sunscreen thick enough to protect skin and to show that sprays don’t pose inhalation risks. If the agency does not receive sufficient data to substantiate these products’ safety, the FDA can bar them. But until the agency takes decisive action, sprays remain on store shelves. Sprays typically cause uneven protection; therefore you end up with “striped” sunburns. The active ingredients in sunscreens are also very important. The FDA has not kept up with banning toxic chemicals in personal care products including sunscreens especially when compared to European standards. Zinc Oxide is still an oldie but goodie ingredient to use. It also provides a physical barrier for skin protection. Some natural oils can also be beneficial as a sunscreen. Red raspberry seeds contain high levels of omega 3 and omega 6 essential fatty acids in addition to antioxidants and natural vitamin E. According to Anthony J. O’Lenick, author of “Oils of Nature,” red raspberry seed oil has a natural SPF between 28 and 50 and may also contain clinically significant anti-inflammatory properties. Carrot seed oil is an essential oil with significant anti-
oxidant, antiseptic, antifungal and fragrant properties with high levels of vitamin A. When applied topically to the skin in the form of a diluted carrier oil, carrot seed oil also provides natural sun protection. According to a study published in “Pharmacognosy Magazine” in 2009, products containing carrot seed oil have a natural SPF of 38 and 40. Wheatgerm is one of the best sources of natural vitamin E and is also a good source of vitamin K, B vitamins and choline. When applied to the skin, wheatgerm oil helps to moisturize tissues and acts as an antioxidant to prevent free radical damage. In a study published in “Pharmacognosy Magazine” in 2009, a sunscreen comprised of wheatgerm and vitamin E had a natural SPF rating of 20. Coconut oil also has a mild spf of 8 and can be used as a carrier oil for any of the above. The consequences of sun damage are so severe (ie. Various skin cancers) that it is worth your while to do a little research to find a safe and effective sunscreen product for your skin type. I welcome you to use the Environmental Working Group’s database to look up your sunscreen and other personal care products to determine if there are chemicals that could be harmful to you.
Dr Leigh Ann Grasso, University of Texas alumnus, is the compounding pharmacist and owner of Annie’s Apothecary in Boerne. Her passion is educating people to improve their health by replacing hormonal and nutrient deficiencies. She lives in Fair Oaks Ranch with her husband and three children.
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MENTAL HEALTH |
ARE YOU HAPPY? By Justin Wolff, LPC-S, LCDC
46 | COMPANY MAGAZINE
It might be a file from work, a gas station receipt or a construction paper pilgrim from your kid’s art class. Whatever the quarry, a runaway piece of paper can have a mind of its own! No common courtesy here; no staying put so you can bend over and pick it up. You know better anyway. The second you do stop, it jukes and you lose valuable time and distance. Once you’re righted for another pass it moves away even farther. It is difficult enough to catch, but it seems as if that piece of paper’s survival instinct increases proportionately to the number of people watching the chase. Under the scrutiny of a crowd of onlookers the pursuer must be confident and sure footed. Get it on the first try or all might be lost. Once a certain separation is reached one must sit with the shame of being a litterbug. I think chasing being happy and the inability to be happy constantly, is similar to that paper chase. We are liable to chase happy back and forth, unable to anticipate where it will be next. We can take blind stabs towards it, which equate to minimal success. It’s fleeting. As a therapist, I see many people that can’t figure out why they aren’t happy. As Americans, we are entitled to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” after all. To be clear; it does say pursuit, but for the sake of this argument we will go with the idea that we actually are entitled to and deserve to be happy. A simple thing I have learned in my time on earth is that 99.9999 percent of people’s problem’s are because they are not happy. “You don’t say,” you might be thinking, but let me elaborate. There is a fundamental narrative thread to all this unhappiness. Drum roll please: People aren’t happy because they aren’t getting their way. There, I said it. If you’re mad at your husband because he doesn’t make enough money, it is because you want more stuff. If you are fed up with your wife being “too tired,” it is because you aren’t getting enough sex. If you yell at your kids for “disrespecting you,” it is because you want some peace and quiet, the dishes done or the yard mowed. “Damn it,” we think, “I am constitutionally entitled to be happy!” A scenario to illustrate my point: Back in the day, I had a dirt bike. This was before the X Games and back flips on bicycles. There was no graphite or alloys to make it lighter. It was steel-It was like a Sherman tank. It was a beast and I loved it. One day, in a treacherous puddle, the forks broke. I was optimistic because Christmas was near. I mentioned the words dirt bike 200 times. “It is all I wanted for Christmas,”
I would tell my mom. That was a lie of course; I wanted a lot of stuff, but I thought it might seal the deal. Christmas came, but no bike. In typical dramatic fashion my mom said, “There is one more.” It was shiny. It had two wheels. It made a click, click, click sound. There was a bow on it, but I couldn’t understand what it was. I think I blacked out for a minute. When I came to and focused, I realized that it was some sort of bicycle. Slowly, my tunnel vision subsided and my hearing returned. I heard someone say, with a great deal of zeal, “It’s a Peugeot!” I responded like any rational 9 year old and said, “What the f@#k is a Peugeot?” For the uniformed, the Peugeot was a prissy little 10 speed. It was not a dirt bike and it sucked. It might as well have been one of those old-timey bikes with a six foot tall front wheel. You can’t take that prissy little bike down a dirt trail. You can’t you jump it off a poorly designed ramp made of two paint buckets and a piece of plywood “borrowed” from a construction site. In fact, you can’t even haul the plywood you stole from the construction site back to your house with it. The point is this: it doesn’t matter how nice, or top-of-theline, or coveted by others what we have is; if it isn’t what we want, it won’t make us happy. It isn’t just that it won’t make us happy; that would imply that we are left feeling neutral. We aren’t happy and we are disappointed or angry or sad. What is happy? Dictionary.com defines happy this way: Happy - adjective 1. delighted, pleased, or glad, as over a particular thing: to be happy to see a person. Happy is an adjective: a word that modifies a noun. Grammatically speaking, we are the noun that is being modified. We must be “modified” to be happy. Happy is an elevated state of human experience. Many people think their default setting should be happy. Things aren’t always smooth and people aren’t constantly delighted like they feel they should be. Enter depression. I think, “I want to be happy,” would be better said, “I don’t want to be unhappy.” This way, the opposite of unhappy is content. Happy is illusive, out there in the ether; it’s airborne paper hell-bent on escape. Contentment is tangible. We don’t require the elevated state as much as we want things not to suck. Based on my eloquent semantic arguments in the last few paragraphs, one might ask, “Is this a semantic argu-
ment?” Perhaps, but it seems like there is less of an evaluative air to content than there is to happy. Contentment alludes to personal ownership of ones feelings and perceptions. It is internal and requires personal responsibility. Happy feels external; something outside of us has responsibility for how we feel. What do we wish someone on their most special day? “Happy Birthday” Happy is special. Content is normal. Happy is a delicate pirouette on a creaky limb, vulnerable to the elements. Contentment is a firm foundation, built on rock. There is a lot of research and scholarship related to happiness. There is some pretty compelling evidence to suggest that when people’s goals are to be happy, they wind up unhappy. Someone trying to be happy, tends to make mental comparisons between current situations and past experiences of happiness. When the current situation is not measuring up to the individual’s internal barometer of happiness, the comparison highlights the fact that the individual is not as happy as times in the past. Constant affirmation of unhappiness can result in a downward spiral. I am not trying to convince the reader that they can’t be happy. I want to challenge people to look at how they feel in a different way. If unhappiness is a problem, I want to help. If you can’t quite buy into my reframing, can you agree to feel better? Whatever word works best for you to describe a couple of notches up from unhappy is attainable, I assure you. Those old doctor scales they used to have where you would move the little thing to the right or left to find your exact weight is a good visual metaphor. What would it take to move you from unhappy a couple of notches towards satisfied? I have a friend that will ask, “How you livin’?” Sometimes that question makes me think. I ask that of the reader, “How you livin’? If you’re struggling, come see me. Justin Wolff, LPC-S, LCDC is a therapist in the Boerne, Fair Oaks and San Antonio areas. Justin has worked with many children, families and individuals on anxiety, depression, and relationship issues, giving him a unique perspective on the things people do. Justin believes that with a compassion and a little humor, mountains can be moved. Wolfftherapy.com
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INSURANCE |
THE ACA REALITY By Rich Senna
Small businesses have begun to feel the effects of the Affordable Care Act. This column will highlight some of the changes that the new law has brought to the health insurance marketplace, as well as offer tips to small businesses as they navigate the options they face. Private insurance companies provide coverage to close to 200 million Americans, with 171 million on group plans with the remainder purchasing individual plans. About 75 million Americans are on Medicare or Medicaid. Of the 45 million uninsured are close to 10 million in the USA illegally, an estimated 10 million who are in between jobs awaiting new group coverage, and 10 million who can afford health insurance but simply refuse to purchase coverage. The number of people unable to purchase insurance prior to 2014 due to pre-existing conditions or unaffordability was estimated to be about 20 million. ACA stands for Affordable Care Act, yet the name is somewhat misleading. The law has made insurance more affordable for many of the 8 million people who purchased private coverage through the government exchange and were eligible for tax credit subsidies based on their income. Conversely, premiums for individuals buying insurance who are ineligible for tax credits have increased substantially, often as much as 60-70%. Surveys indicate that a great percentage of those purchasing subsidized individual insurance on the exchanges previously had coverage, but are now receiving subsidies to lower their costs. You may remember news reports late last year about the 5 million or so Americans who lost their individual coverage due to failure to comply with all the
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mandated coverage of the new law. Those individuals had the options of purchasing more expensive plans compliant with the new law, and most did so. In the group insurance market, ACA employer mandates have started taking effect. Beginning in January 2014, firms with more than 100 employees were required to offer health coverage to all full time workers. Beginning in 2016, this
mandate will be extended to firms with 50 or more full time employees. Firms that employ 50 or more workers and don’t provide health insurance will be subject to a tax penalty of $2000 for each uninsured employee beyond the first 30. By 2018, all firms will have to offer insurance.
Also mandated by law is an affordability factor, where employees who earn below 400% of the federal poverty level ($46,680 for an individual) must pay a premium that is less than 9.5% of their income. Failure to offer affordable plans will result in greater tax penalties. By having a “grandfathered” plan (in existence prior to ACA’s passage in March 2010), many small firms were able to avoid costly mandated benefits and new regulations by renewing less expensive (non-conforming) coverage prior to Jan. 2014. When these plans expire in 2014, firms will be forced to purchase more highly regulated and expensive coverage. Many of these plans will be up for renewal in the 4th quarter of 2014, with notices of new premiums to be sent out in September or October 2014. The impact on group plan premiums has been significant. Several of the nation’s major carriers have seen average premiums increase 16% this year. Some states have seen group rate increases of between 30-50%. Many employers have responded by passing on more of the cost to workers in the form of higher premiums, co-pays, and deductibles. Others are dropping coverage for spouses. By 2016 the annual premium for the average employee is estimated to be $5800, and over $18,000 for a family. The cost to employers for the employee alone comes to $3/ hour. When factoring in the pressure in Washington DC to increase the minimum wage, employers are facing uncertain but potentially significant cost increases. These costs would be passed onto consumers. Is a $10 Big Mac or Big Whopper burger a possibility within 5 years? This has affected business’ plans to hire new workers. A survey of more than 600 small business owners by the
Society for Human Resource Management found that more than 40% of them have delayed hiring due to uncertainty about the effects of the ACA. One in five reported they have cut the number of workers they employ. Surveys by human resources consultant Mercer, as well as NBC News and Investor’s Business Daily, found that a significant number of employers plan to reduce employee work hours. Organized labor agrees, as the leaders of three major unions wrote to Congressional Democrats that the ACA could destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that they describe as “the backbone of the middle class.” What can small businesses do to avoid large health insurance premium increases? Creativity and flexibility is the or-
der of the day. They must work with their agent to analyze all types of plan options. Health Savings Account (H.S.A.) compatible plans often have much lower premiums, and offer some good tax savings options for both employers and employees. In return for paying more for both doctor visits and prescriptions, premiums savings are usually very large. Some of the premium savings can be placed in a pre-tax H.S.A. account, often covering the cost of both doctor visits and prescriptions. H.S.A. plans also help reduce future premium increases by making policy holders better and more vigilant consumers of their health care expenses. Small businesses are also taking another look at selfinsured plans. We had one client who faced a 36% rate increase this year. Opting for a self-funded insurance plan
not only wiped out this increase, but reduced their premiums by close to 15%! They were able to offer for the first time dental coverage and a small life insurance option to all employees and still see a significant reduction in their annual costs. While the ACA law presents challenges to a business’ bottom line, a little effort and creativity can result in an insurance plan that is affordable, satisfies the expectations of employees, and enables a small business to recruit and retain good employees.
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