Spring 2026 Benefits & Payroll Updates

HR Quarterly - Spring 2026

Benefits Updates - Spring 2026

Benefit Office Hours: Summer Quarter Update

Beginning Monday, June 15th, 2026, until September 30th, 2026, Benefits will be reducing scheduled consultation times. Consultations scheduled via the Benefits Booking link, during the summer months, will only be available on Thursdays from 9 AM to 11:30 AM, and 2 PM to 4 PM. 

Appointments may be held either in person (HU 217) or virtually via TEAMs. All Outlook calendar invites include a TEAMs link by default; in-person attendees should check in at HR’s reception desk (HU 203) and can ignore the TEAMs link in their reminder emails.

Despite consults shifting to summer quarter hours, Benefits Open Office Hours remain unchanged. A member of the Benefits team is generally available every Wednesday from 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM in the Humanities Building (HU), Room 217. During this time, no appointment is required and employees are welcome to stop by to ask quick questions, follow up, drop off forms, or obtain signatures on benefits-related documents.

Do note that this may change unexpectedly if Benefits does not have staff available that day. 

Tenure/Tenure Track & NTT Faculty Summer Pre-Collections 

Starting in May, HR Benefits and Payroll will begin the Faculty Summer Pre-Collections process. Notices have gone out to all PEBB eligible faculty members in May and will go out again in June. Eligible faculty members should plan accordingly as higher health care and supplemental life insurance premiums will be collected on the faculty member’s June 25th, 2026, paycheck. 

This increase of collections happens since a vast majority of faculty do not teach over the summer months (July – September), the Health Care Authority (HCA) has provisions in place for Faculty to potentially maintain their health care (PEBB) benefits even when they are not working. Per the HCA’s Summer/Off Quarter provision, faculty members must meet the following criteria:

  • Worked all three academic quarters (fall, winter, spring)
  • Averaged 50% (instructional/non instructional) appointment (.5 FTE) or more on their academic year contract
  • Anticipated to return to WWU in a faculty position after their off quarter

For faculty members who are not eligible for pre-collections, their PEBB benefits may be terminated effective June 30th, 2026. For faculty that are retiring or separating from WWU during summer quarter, may have their benefits end the last day of the month in which they are employed. 

Faculty who lose PEBB benefits are eligible to continue coverage through PEBB Continuous Coverage (COBRA) for up to 18 months. However, faculty who lose benefits should be aware that there is the potential for it to be reinstated if they are returning the following academic year. 

Additionally, as a reminder, faculty members teaching at other WA State higher education institutions should notify Benefits each academic year or quarter in which they have contract elsewhere. HCA has a stacking hours /contract provision for faculty regarding their eligibility. Stacking contracts may allow faculty to gain or maintain benefits if they are at risk of losing them under WWU.

Mid-Year PEBB UMP Network Changes

The Health Care Authority (HCA) recently released a statement regarding a medical plan network change. Effective May 10th, 2026, employees who live in Grays Harbor, Thurston and Yakima counties and who are enrolled under a Uniform Medical Plan (UMP) – which is administered by Regence Blue Shield – may experience network changes. Employees who have a MultiCare provider in those counties, may see an increase of collections due to certain MultiCare providers now becoming an Out of Network provider.

Employees who live in those counties and have a MultiCare provider, should ensure they have read the announcement and any specific mailers sent by the HCA. The announcement can be found here.

Since UMP has in and out of network coverage, employees should familiarize themselves with their coverage per their plans’ certificate of coverage documents. UMP certificate of coverage can be found here.

Fiscal Year 2027: PEBB & DRS Employer Rate Change

Every fiscal year there are two employer rates that change for the upcoming fiscal year. Generally, those two rates are for Health Care (PEBB) and the Department of Retirement System (DRS) pension rate for the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) plan 2 and plan 3. 

As a reminder, DRS will also release an updated employer rate for the Teacher’s Retirement System (TRS) plan 2 and plan 3. This update generally comes around August and is put into effective as of 09/01/2026.

As of today, June 8, 2026, neither the PEBB Board nor DRS have released updates regarding changes for fiscal year 2027. Benefits is expecting this information soon. Employees responsible for managing departmental budgets should check the Fringe Benefit webpage around early July for updated rates. Once DRS and PEBB provide the revised employer rate information, Benefits will communicate these updates to each college’s Operations Managers.

Secure 2.0 – Age 50 Catch Up Reminder

As a reminder, effective January 1st, 2026, any employee who earned $160,000 or more in 2025, and will be age 50 or older in 2026, must make their age based catch-up elective deferral retirement plan contributions as a ROTH (post tax) deduction.  For 2026, the age 50 or older catch-up rate is $8,000. Employees who earned over $160,000 will have their Voluntary Investment Program (VIP) and Deferred Compensation Program (DCP) contribution monitored by Benefits. 

Employees enrolled in a pre-tax VIP or DCP deduction, can only contribute $24,500 into that account, once the employee meets that rate, Benefits will manually move the employee into a ROTH based deduction and will reach out with further information to the impacted employees about their next steps. 

Payroll Updates - Spring 2026

New & Updated Trainings Coming Soon

Our fantastic Payroll Coordinator, Dallas Owen, has been working to set up new and improved university wide timesheet training courses for approvers, staff, and student employees. 

  • Live training via the Learning Library
  • Scheduled one-one-one departmental trainings 
  • Updated online resources
  • Recorded time entry and approval

Current training materials can be found on the HR/Getting-Paid webpage. Be on the lookout for an email announcement when these trainings are available, and do not hesitate to reach out if you have questions. Our team is continuing to work through updating our online resources with a focus on accuracy and accessibility. 

Banner 8 Officially Retiring on June 30th

For those who are still using “Old Web4U,” now is the time to familiarize yourself with “New Web4U.” On June 30th, version 8 of our HRIS system Banner will be inaccessible. We recognize that due to system limitations, it may take some time to get used to Banner 9. If you run into any technical issues, we encourage you to report them to hr.payroll@wwu.edu and we can offer support or triage questions to our IT department. There are instructions online on the HR/Getting-Paid webpage that outline how to approve and submit time using Banner version 9, and payroll services will be available for questions as they arise. Be on the lookout for new and updated training as we make this transition together. 

Address Changes & Emergency Contacts

If you’re planning a move this summer – be sure to update your W2/Permanent address. While you’re there, we encourage all employees to add an emergency contact if you have not already. Human Resources will only reach out to emergency contact in the event of a significant health and/or safety event. Emergency contacts do not have access rights to any of your personal information. 

To review your current W2/Permanent address and add/update your emergency contact, check out your employee profile:

  1. Go to https://mywestern.wwu.edu/web4u/personal-information
  2. Click view my details
  3. Review the address section
  4. Review the emergency contact section
    1. To change a contacts information, click the pencil icon
    2. To delete a contact, click the trash can icon
    3. To add a new contact, click “add new” 

 If your address is out of date, you can update your W2/Permanent Address by following these instructions:

  1. Go to https://mywestern.wwu.edu/web4u/employees
  2. Click change your employee W2 mailing address
  3. Enter your address information
  4. Check the “W2/Employee Permanent” address type box
  5. Click Update at the bottom

Cyclic Leave & Voluntary Temporary Reductions 

Heading into summer, if you are a cyclic employee be sure you or your department are regularly filling out and submitting your timesheets to avoid an overpayment. For more information, please review the Cyclic Year Employment Guide. Voluntary temporary reductions also require a form indicating your days away and the submission and approval of timesheets to ensure that your per pay period salary is appropriately decreased. If you have any questions, please reach out to our ELR Partner Ryan Greer. If your schedule changes, be sure to update your schedule form accordingly to maintain accurate records.

In the event you are overpaid, please contact your department and Hr.payroll@wwu.edu as soon as possible. For information on our overpayment process, check out our webpage: https://hr.wwu.edu/overpayment-process. We appreciate your diligence!

W2 Season Comes to a Close

For the 2025 Tax Year, payroll processed 6,041 W2s & 1099s, 2,000 of which were printed as physical copies. Last minute we were informed that employees whose positions ended in 2025 would not be able to access their 2025 W2 online as expected. Our team went all hands-on deck making calls, sending emails, printing W2 copies, and envelope stuffing. It wouldn’t be the end of the year without a little bit of chaos! A huge shoutout to our HR & Onboarding Admin Buffi Jones and our front desk student employees Markus, Sofia, and Joe for taking on a brunt of the inquiries. We learned a lot from this experience and aim to refine our process for the 2026 tax year.