I spent part of my weekend reading a letter from The Office of Personnel Management about the 2008 administrative fees for the government’s flexible spending accounts (I did it so you don’t have to). Most of the stuff that was in the memo was pretty dry, but a number jumped out of the jumble:

“FSAFEDS participation has increased by 9 percent for 2008, with the number of dependent care accounts increasing by 14 percent. The current 2008 enrollment is 246,435 employees.”

OPM says there are more than three and a half million feds, so my math says about 7 percent of people who can sign up for flexible spending accounts actually did it. If you missed enrolling during Open Season 2007, read up on the benefits and start tracking your medical and other personal health expenses so you’ll know how much to put aside when Open Season ’08 comes around.

What does this have to do with money? Your FSA deduction is taken out of your pay check in pre-tax dollars, and you submit your receipts to the administrator of the plan. Think for a second what tax bracket you’re in, percentage-wise. That’s the discount you get on a huge range of medical and personal health expenses by paying in pre-tax dollars. If, for example, you’ll spend $2000 this year on your family’s health, and you’re in the 30 percent tax bracket, you’d save $600 by getting reimbursed from your FSA.

Granted, you might spend as many as ten hours over the entire year (less than an hour a month) filing your claim to get the money back, but $60 an hour isn’t a bad little extra income stream.

What would you do with the money?

Post a comment (registration required) or send an e-mail to letters@fcw.com (subject line: Blog comment) and we will post it for you.

Rose (frose@federalnewsradio.com) is the co-host of “Your Turn with Mike Causey” on Federal News Radio AM 1050, which can be heard each Wednesday at 10a.m. EST. Hear archived programs on FederalNewsRadio.com.