Flexible Spending Accounts

Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) help you save money by setting aside pretax dollars for certain health care and dependent care expenses. The County offers a Health Care FSA and a Dependent Care FSA. Each year you have the option to enroll in one or both accounts. To participate, you must be a Regular County employee scheduled to work at least 20 hours per week.

How the Flexible Spending Accounts Work

This is a high-level summary. The detailed plan document is available for your review. If there are discrepancies between this summary and the plan document, the provisions of the plan document will prevail.

Your account is funded by contributions from your pa taken on a pretax basis in equal installments over the plan year. You or your tax dependents incur eligible expenses. Such as, physician copays, deductibles, coinsurance or dependent care expenses.

You submit your expenses for reimbursement from you account. You reimburse yourself by submitting a claim along with your receipt, explanation of benefits or other appropriate documentation of the expense. Your claim is paid from the pretax money you accumulate n your FSA. Eligible expenses incurred in the calendar year (January 1 – December 31), and submitted by April 15 of the following year will be reimbursed.

Important FSA Rules

Expenses will be reimbursed only if they were incurred during the calendar year of your participation in the plan, or the 2 ½ month grace period (January – March 15) of the following year. You have until April 15 of the following year to submit reimbursement requests.

If your employment with the Conty ends, you can be reimbursed only for claims incurred up to your last day of employment, unless you elect COBRA continuation coverage for a Health Care FSA.

You must spend all of the money in your accounts, or you will forfeit any remaining funds. You are not permitted to carry over an FSA balance from one year to the next, so be sure to estimate your contributions carefully.

Your contributions will be in effect for the entire plan year. You cannot stop or change your FSA contributions during the plan year unless you have a qualified status change, such as a change marital status, the birth or adoption of a child, etc.

Money cannot be transferred between the Health Care FSA and the Dependent Care FSA for expense reimbursement. Double check to make sure you elect the appropriate FSA to cover your anticipated expenses.

Each year during Annual Enrollment, you must decide whether you want to participate in the FSAs – your enrollment election does not automatically carry over to the following year.

Tax Savings

The money you put into the FSA is deducted from you paycheck before taxes are withheld, so you end up paying taxes on a smaller portion of your income. This means more take-home pay for you!