FSA Deadlines and HRA (Health Reimbursement Account) Info

by dara, FA Vice President

On August 9th, Eva Brown sent information about Open Enrollment, but the message also included reminders about FSA spending deadlines: both Grace Periods and Runout Periods. Largely, I’ll just be reminding you all of that information, and then I’ll clarify some things about our HRAs.

FSA Deadlines: The reason we have multiple FSA spending deadlines this year is because of the move to SISC. We should not have to worry about different deadlines going forward because our plans will run a full 12 months, October 1-September 30.

For now, it’s important to remember these sets of dates and the two definitions. The Grace Period refers to the deadline for spending the funds. The Runout Period refers to the deadline for submitting claims. This table highlights both:

Plan Year	Grace Period (last day to spend the $)	Runout Period (last day to submit the claims)
3/1/24-9/30/24	12/14/2024	12/29/2024
10/1/24-9/30/25	12/14/2025	12/29/2025

HRA Info: Benefit credits may be used to purchase voluntary insurance plans, or they may be placed into a Health Reimbursement Account (HRA). Until this year, the District has been permitting employees to have their leftover benefit credits funnel into Flexible Spending Accounts, but going forward, effective 10/1/2024, those funds will be placed into a Health Reimbursement Account (HRA). While the HRA is new for us, how the accounts will function should not be disruptive in terms of how we have used our FSA money in the past. If you elected to have an FSA account in addition to an HRA account, funds would pull first from the FSA account. Then once those funds are exhausted, funds will pull from the HRA account. NBS will still be our account administrator, we will not have to reregister to get a different debit card, and we can still use the funds on the FSA website. Election to participate in an FSA or HRA account can only be done during open enrollment or is an option for a new employee when they sign up for benefits.

Stay tuned for an upcoming newsletter article…Alliant Medicare Solutions!