FSA rules relaxed in response to COVID-19
During Open Enrollment last year, you may have elected a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) to have money taken from your paycheck, pretax, to pay for dependent day care or certain medical expenses not covered by your health plan. Now, your expenses may have changed due to the coronavirus pandemic, so the IRS has relaxed rules pertaining to Health Care and Dependent Day Care FSAs. These changes are effective through the end of 2020.
Increase or decrease your FSA contribution
If you have a Health Care or Dependent Day Care FSA, you can increase, reduce, or cancel your contributions without a qualifying life event. If you are not currently enrolled in an FSA, you may now enroll outside of the normal enrollment period. One plan change without a qualifying life event will be allowed, through Sept. 30, 2020.
If you want to make any of these changes to your FSA, please use the FSA Change Form or contact The Benefits Team.
Keep in mind:
- If you opt to stop participating in an FSA, contributions already made will not be refunded, however, you may use your FSA to get reimbursed for expenses incurred through the end of the year.
- If increasing your FSA, be cautious—unused funds are forfeited, except for $550 in your Health Care FSA, which can roll over into the following plan year.
Other Health Care FSA changes
- You can now use your Health Care FSA to pay for or receive reimbursement for:
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- Over-the-counter drugs and medicines without a doctor’s prescription.
- Menstrual care products, which are now considered a qualified medical expense. All expenses incurred after Dec. 31, 2019, qualify, and the provision has no expiration date.
- The amount of unused Health Care FSA contributions you can carry over to 2021 has increased by $50 for a total of $550. Dependent Day Care FSAs do not have a carry-over feature.
Go online for more information about Flexible Spending Accounts. To request a change to your FSA, please contact the King County Benefits Team at KC Benefits or 206-684-1556.
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Featured Job: Quality Assurance Engineer
Salary: $91,897.94 – $116,486.24 Annually
Location: Seattle, WA
Job Type: Career Service, Full Time, 40 hrs/week
Department: DES – Executive Services
Job Number: 2020AB11610
Division: Business Resource Center
Learn more about this position or view all available positions.
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Working together to repair our region
On Sunday, King County Executive Dow Constantine joined King County employees and volunteers to clean up and repair damage done to County buildings and resources. Executive Constantine shared his experience on Twitter, and through this accompanying message.
“I was in downtown Seattle this morning to personally thank King County employees and volunteers who are repairing our facilities that were damaged by violent opportunists who hijacked last night’s peaceful protest against racial injustice. Some of our facilities – a childcare center, a homeless shelter, a homeless day center, bus stops – had broken windows or were spray-painted. Yet thanks to the rapid response by our employees and volunteers, we are on track to reopen all our downtown services tomorrow morning. The resiliency and dedication of our staff and partners means we can continue to offer the services that keep the people of King County safe and healthy even during a global pandemic. I encourage us to unite as a region for a lasting change that will bring America closer to the promise of our County’s namesake.”
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PeopleSoft HCM outage this weekend, June 5-7
To allow for system maintenance, the PeopleSoft system will not be available the weekend, June 5-7.
During this planned outage, the Business Resource Center (BRC) will apply vendor updates and maintenance.
This work will begin on Friday, June 5, at 3 p.m. and is scheduled to be completed by 6:30 a.m. on Monday, June 8.
The system will not be available for access by any County staff during this outage window. There will be a communication sent out to all County staff when the system becomes available.
We realize that this outage impacts all PeopleSoft users and we appreciate your understanding and support.
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Facilitating Effective Meetings online webinar, June 10 and 11
A common challenge faced by individuals in business is how to lead and facilitating meetings that are interesting and solicit active engagement. This two-day training covers the skills used by a facilitator to design and run an effective meeting. How to be a better participant is also discussed. Topics include specific facilitation skills, group decision making skills, and how to deal with disruptive behaviors.
This webinar will be led by notable trainer and meeting facilitator Lenny Borer, who specializes in classes on communication and problem solving skills, meeting facilitation, instructor training and giving business presentations.
- Wednesday, June 10, and Thursday, June 11, 2020, from 9.a.m. to noon. Register here. Participants must attend both days.
The webinar is $65 and space is limited. For more information, contact the Learning and Development Team at KCTraining@kingcounty.gov or visit www.kingcounty.gov/learning.
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Standing for justice as we keep our community safe from spread of COVID-19
Crossposted from Public Health Insider
Public Health – Seattle & King County shared perspectives from our local leadership about George Floyd’s tragic death, yet one more in an endless string of violence perpetrated against Black people in our country, and answered questions about participating in protests while reducing the risk of spreading COVID-19.
Story:
In recent days, community members joined protests locally and across the country in response to the death of George Floyd and so many Black lives that have been taken through senseless, violent and racist acts. This racism and hate comes on top of the stress, burden and illness being inequitably experienced by Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other people of color during the pandemic, the result of centuries of systemic racism.
Read more from Public Health Insider
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Resources available to identify and address COVID-19
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have put together a useful website to support people during the coronavirus pandemic. It includes a list of possible symptoms to watch out for, such as fever, coughing, fatigue, and shortness of breath. View the site here.
The website shares how anyone can have mild to severe symptoms, but that older adults and people who have severe underlying medical conditions like heart or lung disease or diabetes seem to be at higher risk. Additional symptoms can include:
- Muscle or body aches
- Headache
- New loss of taste or smell
- Sore throat
- Congestion or runny nose
- Nausea or vomiting
- Diarrhea
To better support employee health and well-being, Regence BlueShield and Kaiser Permanente have also developed resources for members. Regence has put together a COVID-19 website and symptom tracker tool. Both can be viewed here. Kaiser Permanente has put together a COVID-19 website, which can be viewed here.
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A message from the Exec: Let’s keep working together to make it right
On Sunday, following his Friday message to County employees, Executive Constantine shared this message on Twitter with the people of King County:
A message from the Exec
(Preface: I’m sorry for the many people who gathered to peacefully, earnestly protest injustice – an act of civic responsibility of the highest order – only to have the day & message hijacked by violent opportunists. This isn’t about the rioters.)
We all know what we saw in Minneapolis. A court will make the legal determination, but we all saw black man’s life – George Floyd’s life – slowly and painfully ended, without justification, and in the name of the state – on our behalf.
And we all recognize that it likely would not have happened that way if he was white. And that it’s not an isolated outrage, and not limited to law enforcement, and not confined to any one corner of this country. You see that. I see that.
I also see my friends, relatives, employees of color in pain. In fear. Afraid of their own country, and its deep, unresolved problems with race.
The deep-seated racial bias woven through virtually every institution in our society will take an extraordinary, united, sustained toil to extract and destroy.
Generations have tried. And though in some ways consciousness has never been greater, the past few years have been a period of retrenchment for America.
We must keep trying, keep working. In King County, we strive to be racially just. It’s one of the core values we work towards every day.
Our values define the way we act, what’s important to us, and our expectations for ourselves and one another.
I know I’m not alone in feeling I haven’t always been loud enough. For white people, it can feel awkward – like you’re trying too hard.
But if we care about our nation, and about people, then we’ll have to risk saying the wrong thing sometimes.
And just say it. Say that we see the injustice.
I see it. Let’s keep working together to make it right.
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White folks being anti-racist: How do we become useful?
Written by Richard Gelb, Environmental Public Health Planner, Department of Public Health, ProTech17
The systems of whiteness and racism in society have been more greatly revealed through the COVID-19 emergency. We see the historic and ongoing racial differences in the quality, affordability, and access to housing, health care, jobs, education, transportation, and technology resulting in disproportionately higher risk of infections for people of color.
Pictured: Author Richard Gelb, bottom left, with other members of the Antiracist White Action Group (ARWAG).
King County’s Antiracist White Action Group (ARWAG), one of several official Employee Resource Groups, helps white employees train themselves away from harmful behaviors and become more poised to constructively engage in change.
My experience as a member of ARWAG has allowed me to become involved in working to change systems of oppression that benefit white people. This work has shown me that antiracist behavior is about interrupting – seeing and countering momentum of racial inequity in real time – or follow-up steps. It can be hard to do, but my skills and ability have been enhanced by joining white colleagues that want to advance racial justice.
This includes seeing systems of whiteness, that are revealed in ourselves and others, and learning, through role play, how to respond in the moment to support more equitable access for, and treatment of colleagues, customers, and residents who identify as Black, Indigenous, and people of color. We learn and practice together – and implement a work program focused on white culture change that is guided by other Affinity Groups.
By working on equity and social justice and being part of ARWAG, I now see the system of “whiteness” showing up in both obvious and subtle ways, for example:
- during hiring panels, as comments like ‘they seem like a good fit’ – meaning this candidate will not rock the boat
- when contributions from those lacking “professional” or “standard” English are discounted
- when ‘fair’ means serving the first in line, while ignoring how the line is formed
- when available resources are ‘spread like peanut butter evenly across the toast’, regardless of how need is distributed
In this period of traumatic disruption from COVID-19, it can be difficult to deal with the feelings of grief brought on by the harmful failings in our unfair systems. Empathy and compassion should drive our satisfaction in building toward racial justice.
I am grateful to have an employer and union that support anti-racism and equity as a core elements of my routine work. My experience with anti-racism efforts in King County have been uncomfortable, challenging, hopeful, and even healing. I invite and encourage my white colleagues to join me at ARWAG meetings and become part our shared work toward racial justice at King County.
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Tech Tip: Intentional email from KCIT vendor KnowBe4 featured security tips for phishing scams
On Wednesday, May 27, 2020, all King County email users received the first email from authorized King County vendor KnowBe4.com about phishing scams, titled “KnowBe4 Security Tips – Social Engineering Red Flags #1: Sender.”
King County Information Technology (KCIT) has partnered with KnowBe4.com to regularly provide information and training to employees about phishing scams and other email red flags. KnowBe4.com is a leading industry expert in security awareness training. Its mission is to help employees to make smarter security decisions, every day, and keep the County’s and employees’ information secure.
Employees are encouraged to read through the helpful information in each email and review the security tips presented. For this first email, the tips include analyzing who and where the email came from. Employees can also rest assured the email comes from a verified source, and is not spam, as it does not feature the external email notice, seen below.
For questions or more information, contact the KCIT Helpdesk or call 206-263-4357 (3-HELP).
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