Fringe Benefits – FY 2015-2016
Faculty and Professional/Administrative Staff
Benefits
15.32% Total Benefits (excluding health insurance)
See Detailed Components:
| 9.98% | for The State Employees Retirement System (TSERS) Pension Fund, for all other full time State Personnel Act (SPA) and Exempt from Personnel Act (EPA) Professional/Administrative Staff. (For faculty participating in the Optional Retirement System, substitute 6.84%) (5.60% for retiree hospital & medical benefits, 0.41% for retiree disability income plans, and 0.16% for retiree death benefits plans). See current rates |
| 6.20% | for federal OASDI/Social Security |
| 1.45% | for federal FICA/Medicare and Medicaid |
| 0.9% | Fixed Benefit Composite Rate for FY 2015. This component (typically between 0.7% and 1.5%), collected monthly from every payroll account, is used to pay required expenses not attributable to a single project or department. It includes Workers’ Compensation and other expenses due when a permanent employee’s status changes (e.g. retirement, termination, unemployment, and disability). |
Health Insurance Direct Costs
Costs are established by the State and subject to revision annually.
$5,735.76 per year is the FY 16 fixed employer contribution for employee health insurance. This amount may be prorated for the employee’s actual FTE share dedicated to a given project. Since this fixed dollar amount has a greater impact on lower salaries, NC State uses an average salary of $57,500 to calculate an average ratio of health insurance cost to salary of 9.35%.
The calculation is based on the example salary shown above. You may use actual salaries if you so choose. The dollar value of the salary used effects the percentage value.
NC State’s simplified proposal estimating rate includes: 15.32% 6.20% 1.45% 1.0% 9.35% rounded to 33%.
Post-Doctoral Associates
May be used in lieu of the normal estimating rate of 19%.
Benefits
A detailed estimate would include:
8.65% including the following components dictated by the Federal Government:
See Detailed Components:
| 6.20% | for OASDI/Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (aka Social Security) |
| 1.45% | for Medicare and Medicaid |
| 1.0% | for fixed benefit for current employees. Said benefits are charged on an actual cost basis. When an employee ends his or her employment they are entitled to certain pay-outs for things such as severance pay and terminal leave pay. These pay-outs can be a substantial amount of money depending on the employee's history. It is not equitable to charge those pay-outs to the account that paid the last regular salary when several different accounts had paid that employee's salary over the course of their employment. Per the determination of the US Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS) the university collects small percentage contributions called the "fixed fringe benefit composite rate" from every payroll account every month. The funds collected are used to pay those employment termination expenses. The cost is thereby distributed equally over all payroll accounts and no single account gets charged the total lump sum of those pay-outs. |
The fixed benefit composite rate includes costs to be incurred for the payment of earned annual/vacation leave, workers’ compensation, unemployment compensation, short-term disability, and associated benefits & administrative costs charged by the North Carolina Flex Plan all needed when an employee’s status changes (i.e. termination, unemployment, disability, etc.). These costs are charged to every account tied to the employee’s salary. The charges are billed in advance of the employee’s status change and are then retained for actual use at a later date. The composite rate percentage is determined on an annual basis by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Determination is based on the previous year’s actual expenditures for these types of human resource actions.
Health Insurance Direct Costs
Costs are a fixed cost per year negotiated by UNC System.
$3,855 for post doctoral health insurance prorated for the actual FTE effort dedicated to the project.
The 19% rate is based on an average project salary of $39,000 FTE/year. If the average project salary is anticipated to be considerably lower, actual benefits should be calculated. The reason is because the health insurance is a static rate per year and not a function of an employee’s salary. As such, as the annual FTE salary falls below $39,000 per year the effective rate associated with health insurance increases.
NC State’s simplified proposal estimating rate includes: 8.65% 10% rounded to 19%.