Why I'm proud of the UFT Welfare Fund

Read the latest from UFT Welfare Fund Executive Director Geof Sorkin

Geof Sorkin is the UFT Welfare Fund Executive Director and a member of Unity Caucus

As 2025 begins, I find myself reflecting on the many things in my life that I feel fortunate for. Besides the greatest blessing of my family and their happiness and health, I am thankful for being a part of the UFT Welfare Fund.

Working at the Fund is very special to me. As a third generation UFT member, I have been covered by the Fund my entire life. Under Michael Mulgrew’s leadership, the UFT Welfare Fund has prospered and continued to improve the benefits we provide for our members. This past year has been a period of significant change and improvement; we care and we want the best for UFT members!

Almost a year and a half ago, I met with Michael and he shared his vision to do more. Members are starting to see some of those efforts unfold. At the beginning of the school year, we announced our partnership with Hospital for Special Surgery, creating a concierge program that provides best-in-class orthopedic care for our membership. We increased our disability payments for members on medical leave and tripled our enteral formula coverage support for parents with newborns. We recently tripled the size of our dental network. We also just enhanced our optical benefit, making it yearly with an increased reimbursement, and with the addition of over a thousand new providers across the country. We are also exploring potential benefit enhancements, including the ongoing dental Request for Proposal process.

We are able to accomplish this because we are in excellent financial shape and maintain healthy reserves. While some have chosen to critique this approach, we celebrate it as it positions our fund to continue providing benefits well into the future.

There are so many other aspects of the fund that I am proud of:

• Extremely low prescription drug copayments for our in-service members.

• An extensive formulary of drugs - we were the first to cover HIV, Hepatitis C, and other specialty medications.

• A $1,000 maximum out of pocket family cap on prescription drug copayments for tier 1 (generic) and tier 2 (preferred brand name) drugs. After you reach that point, you’ll have no more out of pocket costs on those drug tiers.

• We have two licensed pharmacists on staff that assist with Rx issues in real time. Whether a member is in-service or a retiree, they can provide help while you are standing in a pharmacy line.

• We have an entire department to help our members with city health coverage issues.

• We utilize a modern computer system that allows fast access to our web portal.

• We have an extremely fast turnaround time to process internal benefits. It takes us days to process (hearing aid, retiree optional rider, etc.) , other organizations take weeks or months.

• We have six licensed social workers on staff to assist with navigating any retiree or in-service health benefit issue from the routine to the emergency.

• We have a decade long partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) providing best in class concierge cancer care.

• We were amongst the first to provide coverage for domestic partnerships, same sex marriage coverages, and we continue to advocate and ensure the city provides transgender health care.

• We were one of the first unions in the country with a parental leave benefit that we fully administer.

• We give out a million dollars to our graduating high school students every year for the UFT Welfare Fund Albert Shanker College Scholarship.

Finally, we get contacted regularly by other unions and our state and national affiliates looking to us for guidance and leadership. We always do our homework, we are always proactive, and our actions are always measured!

I am very proud of our Welfare Fund and it’s ability to provide for UFT members and their families. We are here to serve. Please call us if you need help at 212-539-0500