Village officials have temporarily suspended plans for one policy encouraging wellness throughout Tinley Park and another intended to offer snacking employees an alternative to junk food.
Trustee Greg Hannon, who cited “unforeseen costs” while leading the move to withdraw the ordinances at a recent village board meeting, later said both issues should be back for consideration before year’s end.
Hannon said that, instead of tabling the wellness policy until a specific date, trustees opted to postpone consideration “until we had a funding mechanism in place.”
Trustees had expected to implement the wellness policy with money left over from a three-year-old program that provides pedometers—devices that measure the number of steps the wearer takes—to employees.
Most of that money, however, has been spent on the 149 devices worn by employees interested in improved health and—health-related bonuses.
“It’s a good-news, bad-news situation,” Hannon said, adding policy funding should be available at the mid-year budget meeting in November.
Many employees embraced the pedometer program, and the Human Resources Department talked it up by focusing on the financial carrots it provides. Among them are up to $500 in bonuses employees can accumulate by participating and logging their pedometer readings and other activities.
The second policy, intended to offer employees and visitors a wider range of snack choices, would require vending machines on municipal property to “comply with nutritional mandates” in 50 percent of their beverages and 30 percent of their food.
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Introducing healthier drinks, such as fruit juices and flavored waters, was one of several ideas developed by the Mayor’s Advisory Panel on Wellness, which was funded by a $126,000 grant from the Cook County Department of Public Health, Tom Mahoney, a Tinley Park resident and consultant who led the initiative, said several weeks ago.
But Hannon said the current beverage machines can only dispense soda and the snack machines aren’t equipped to dispense apples or oranges.
During the Sept. 18 village board meeting, Hannon quipped, “Apparently our vending machines are not healthy.”
Municipal staff is determining whether to retrofit or replace the machines, Hannon said.