Employees will see the University of California benefits program tighten its controls over the next year as a way to save money for the institution, employees and, ultimately, California taxpayers. This means we're going to be asked to reaffirm the benefit plans we have chosen and will likely need to provide legal documentation of our relationships to spouses and children. The first step will occur during the upcoming open-enrollment period in November. Any employee making a benefits change will be asked during the telephone enrollment to verify the eligibility of dependents. The second step will occur during what the benefits administrators call the Family-Member Verification Project. "The verification project will begin January and February 1997 as an opportunity for employees to make a clean sweep on the enrollment of dependents," says Leslye Hays, manager of the UC Davis Employee Benefits Office. Employees who did not make any changes during open enrollment and who reaffirm their dependent eligibility will be asked to to reaffirm their dependents through a special mailing in January or February. "The reaffirmation process is for their protection as well as the university's," Hays says. Employees with dependents will be asked to review their dependent enrollment and those benefit plans they elected, in some cases years ago, and decide if they still want to be enrolled. For instance, employees may find they are needlessly paying insurance for an ex-spouse for whom they couldn't receive coverage, anyway. At some future date, UC will initiate a process in which UC employees will be asked to provide to the Office of the President Benefit Programs with copies of birth and marriage evidence for their dependents. The practice is used by other large government institutions, like the Public Employee Retirement System and Los Angeles County, to verify benefit recipients, Hays says. While family verification will be an annual event, Hays says it is likely that once copies of birth and marriage certificates are submitted, the Employee Benefits Office will require subsequent documentation only for new children and spouses of existing employees and from new employees. At the point that this verification is required, certificates must be those official documents obtained through the office of record, such as the county clerk's office, where births and marriages are recorded. A side benefit to collecting the certificates is that these are needed for financial planning, and for eventual receipt of retirement and social security benefits, Hays says. The process and eventual timeline to require birth and marriage evidence for family members is currently under development at the Office of the President. "We'll keep the campus posted on what is decided," Hays says. The change in the UC enrollment program was triggered two years ago when UC audited the benefits category for "other children" (stepchildren and wards) and found that as many as 20 percent of employees using the "other children" category were unable to verify a legal relationship. Since 1995, all UC employees who claim stepchildren and legal wards have been asked to provide legal documentation on an annual basis. Since that initial "other children" audit, the Office of the University Auditor has begun to look at other categories, including the natural child and legal spouse categories, to see if the university and employees are paying premiums for ineligible dependents. "This plan is designed to improve the university's fiduciary accountability in regard to to the use of these funds," Hays says. "If we are paying premium dollars on ineligible dependents or for a plan that an employee isn't eligible for, then both the employee and the university are out the money." Additionally, Hays says those complying with the regulations are indirectly subsidizing ineligible people through increased plan costs. The university believes it may have a lot to gain from the verification project. Hays points to the magnitude of the benefit costs at the University of California. January 1996 enrollment statistics reveal that in the area of UC medical plans, the university covered 94,951 employees at a total monthly premium cost of $24.8 million. The university contributed $23 million of the premiums and employees the remainder. These same statistics show that at UC Davis, 12,109 employees were enrolled in medical plans at a monthly cost of $3.2 million, with the university picking up $3,078,500 and employees the rest.