The purpose of this memo is to inform you of the employer paid fringe benefits rates for fiscal year (FY) 2025. A description of how each of the fiscal year 2025 benefits will be charged is provided below and a more detailed breakdown of the employer paid fringe benefits is provided in the attached table (“Table 1”).
- Retirement/Pension Subsidy – New rates are provided for most State Systems. New rates will be implemented pay period ending July 9, 2024 for the Regular system and pay period ending July 13, 2024 for the University system.
- Match of Employee Contributions to the Maryland Supplemental Retirement Plans (MSRP) [457, 403 (b) and 401 (k)] – This benefit includes a dollar-for-dollar match for qualifying MSRP participants, up to $600 for FY 2025. Program requirements are as follows.
o Membership in the State Employees’ Alternate Pension system (ST EMP ALT PEN) on their pay stubs.
o Active participation in one of the three Supplemental retirement plans which are identified by Deduction Codes 39(DEF COMP), 99(403-B TSA PLAN), BP(401-K SAVE), BF(ROTH-457) and BG(ROTH-401K); all sponsored by the Maryland Supplemental Retirement Plans and administered by Nationwide.
o Employees who are working at institutions of higher education, who meet the first requirement AND who meet the second requirement by being a participant in one or more Deduction Codes such as BS(TIAA-457B); 40(TIAA-403B); 70(FDLTY-457B); 68(FDLTY-403B); BH(ROTH-403BTIAA); BI(ROTH 403B-FIDELITY) in lieu of or in combination with one or more Nationwide administered plans.
o One employee can have several “SRA” deductions. The sum of all the match deductions in all state employment for the fiscal year cannot exceed $600.00. See page 8 of the attachment for additional information. - Unemployment Insurance Premium – The rate for FY 2025 will be 0.14%. Unemployment Insurance Wages exclude cafeteria plans, dependent and health care plans, and parking deductions.
- FICA (Social Security and Medicare) – The rate is unchanged through calendar year 2024.
- Medicare Insurance Subsidy – The rate is unchanged through calendar year 2024.
- Health Insurance Subsidies – Health Insurance subsidies will not be updated until January 1, 2025.
- Special Subsidy – The rate for fiscal year 2025 will be 61.20%. The Special Subsidy (retiree health subsidy) will appear on each Agency total page of the payroll and check register, the cost tape and subsequent R*STARS transactions. It will not appear on the employee’s earnings statement (pay stub).
- Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB) – This subsidy for fiscal year 2025 will not be funded. Implementation will take place effective with the cash payday in July 2024 unless otherwise noted in the discussion above. The cash payday is July 3rd (PPE 6/25/2024) for employees in the regular system and July 5th (PPE 6/29/2024) for employees in the University system.