What’s the BIG news?

September paychecks! While we always recommend that you review your pay stub monthly, September is a particularly important month when it comes to paychecks. Because we pay for our medical/dental premiums in the payroll immediately prior to the month of coverage, September is the first month we pay premiums for the new benefits plan year, which begins October 1st. Whether you’re a school division employee getting your first check of the school year, or a government employee who works year-round, please carefully review your paystub for salary, VRS deductions (full-time employees), and deductions for any voluntary benefits (health, dental, etc.) you may have. You can quickly find these deductions in the Payroll Deductions section of your paystub. Got questions? Get answers by contacting the Payroll at 296-5837 or Human Resources at 296-5827.

Medical/dental enrollment cards: Coventry/Aetna (our medical plan administrator) recently sent out updated enrollment cards for the new plan year. If you made certain changes (adding a dependent, changing a plan level, etc.) to your dental plan during the recent Open Enrollment period, you should be receiving new dental enrollment cards very soon. Please be sure to review any new enrollment cards you receive and call us if you have questions!

What else is going on?

This is a great time of year to think about retirement planning! Full-time employees in the Virginia Retirement System (VRS) can view updated annual Member Benefit Profiles by creating/logging into your personal VRS account. You can read more about this by visiting the VRS website.

VRS HYBRID plan member? If you’re a Hybrid member and not taking advantage of the opportunity to contribute pre-tax voluntary funds (up to 4% of salary is permitted) into your defined contribution retirement savings account, you’re not reaping the benefits of additional employer-matching funds! Learn more about the VRS Hybrid retirement plan and why it’s SO important to contribute voluntary funds into the Defined Contribution portion of your Hybrid Plan by visiting the Hybrid info page.

REMEMBER: Whether you’re a VRS Plan 1, Plan 2 or Hybrid Plan member, no ONE source of income (VRS, Social Security) is going to fully replace your pre-retirement salary once you retire. Take advantage of pre-tax retirement savings opportunities by participating in our Nationwide Retirement Solutions 457 account (available to Local Government or School Division employees) or by contributing to a 403b account (for school division folks, only). You can learn more by visiting our Deferred Compensation site.

If you’re new to Albemarle County/ACPS, benefitsFOCUS is our electronic newsletter that features information about YOUR employee benefits. We hope you find benefitsFOCUS an important source of timely and relevant information about your Albemarle County Benefits! There’s a lot going on in the benefits world …

For more information about your employee benefits, our web pages are always available when you are.