Program Aims To Hook Greater Cleveland On Saving

Program Aims To Hook Greater Cleveland On Saving

March 6, 2001
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
by Teresa Dixon Murray

Greater Clevelanders can get free financial advice, no-fee savings accounts and, in some cases, time off work to learn about money through a program being launched today.

More than 100 companies and agencies will kick off Cleveland Saves, an effort to achieve radical changes in attitudes about money. Cleveland will be the model for a national program. While Cleveland Saves is focusing on households with annual incomes of less than $50,000, all area residents will be eligible to participate.

All the area's major banks and savings and loans have agreed to drop their fees and minimum-balance requirements for savings accounts for anyone who's signed up as a Cleveland Saves member.

In addition, residents will be able to get free financial consultations from a network of finance experts. More than 40 local professionals are on the volunteer list to provide face-to-face or phone consultations on issues ranging from figuring out which credit card to pay off first to deciding the best way to save for retirement.

Dozens of area businesses have agreed to give employees time off during working hours to attend on-site classes and discussions about savings, 401(k)s, budgeting and home-buying.

Among them is Cleveland Track Material Inc., a 250-worker manufacturer, which has agreed to afternoon financial sessions, said human resources director Mike Heasley. "This is worth it because it's addressing something that's an epidemic in the country," Heasley said.

The Employers Resource Council and the Council of Smaller Enterprises are encouraging members to support Cleveland Saves programs on the job.

Studies show that workers who have financial or personal problems in general aren't as productive, said Patrick Perry, executive director of the ERC, which gives human-resources advice to 920 member companies covering about 400,000 employees.

Cleveland Saves will be managed by Working for Empowerment through Community Organizing, a Cleveland nonprofit that helps individuals and businesses invest in themselves.

WECO Executive Director George Barany said Americans have gotten away from saving, in part because people have been conditioned to want everything they see advertised. "We have become an immediate society," he said.

In addition, Barany said, many low- and middle-income families don't think they have any money available to save. But simply skipping the purchase of a can of pop from the vending machine a couple times a week or passing up that new music CD is a starting point. "Our goal is to create a savings habit," he said.

The national America Saves program will roll out in other cities later this year, Stephen Brobeck said. He is executive director of the Consumer Federation of America in Washington, D.C., which developed the project.

Cleveland was chosen as the kick-off city, Brobeck said, mainly because it has a strong cooperative relationship among businesses, nonprofit agencies and government, and because local residents don't save much.

Only about half of area households with incomes between $15,000 and $25,000 say they save anything, according to a survey last month for the Consumer Federation.

Cleveland Saves hopes to get out its message largely through public-service ads paid for in part by the Ford Foundation. It wants to influence 100,000 residents during the next several years, Brobeck said.

Jay Seaton, chief operating officer of Consumer Credit Counseling Services of Northeast Ohio, said that's possible. He noted that society in the last generation has been taught to use seat belts more consistently and to shun smoking and drunken driving. "We've done it before," he said. "We can do it with savings, too."