Iowa Wellness Program for Teachers : Uncontrolled & Selfdirected - $1.5 Mil

What is the world are these people thinking when they decided to become members of the responsible and commons sense community. And Iowa is always looked at as being so important in the election cycle?

Come on people, do you have that much money in the coffers from the idiot taxpayers that you can waste it on a uncontrolled and self-directed wellness plan? Are you stupid or are you all just more of the same class of tax and spend progressive socialist democrats that are destroying our country!!

Taxpayers, do something to stop this idiocy before these morons ruin your city and your state like they have the country..

New Wellness Program for Teachers Will Cost $1.5 Million
Source: Paul Brennan, "Teachers Get Outfitted With Fitbits at Taxpayer Expense," Daily Signal, June 29, 2014.

July 14, 2014

Next school year, Iowa teachers in the Des Moines Public School district will receive free Fitbits -- electronic wristbands that track the wearer's calories burned and activity. The district plans to spend $375,000 on the free wristbands for all district employees participating in its Healthy U Wellness Program, reports the Daily Signal.

The program was instituted to incentivize employees to become more active, and the school district is using financial incentives to encourage participation:

• Full-time employees can receive $200 for participating in the wellness program.
• Simply enrolling and having a free biometric scan earns the teacher $100.
• If the employee meets just six out 24 possible wellness goals (which can include going to the dentist, joining a bowling league or watching a webinar), he can earn an additional $100. If these goals are too difficult, employees can create their own wellness goals.
• Part-time employees are also eligible for the program and the free Fitbit.

The Healthy U Wellness program will cost the school district $1.5 million in the next fiscal year, but none of the allotted funds will be spent to supervise participants. According to the Daily Signal, all fitness goals are to be self-reported, and there are no actual fitness benchmarks or objective success measures.

The school district insists that each dollar spent on the program will save $3.24, but it gives no explanation for how that figure was derived.