Off the Hook: Kiss Those Work Cell Phone Reimbursement Bills Goodbye

Brrrinnnnggg!!! Riinnnnggg!   

(Or, whatever your ring-tone may be …)

If you carry a County-issued cell phone, we have good news!

No more monthly “12-cents-a-minute” reimbursement bills to pay for personal calls!

That’s right; thanks to a long-awaited change in the law and clarification by the Internal Revenue Service, County employees no longer have to pay if they occasionally have to use their work cell-phones to make personal calls. It’s a change that will not only save money, but time and paperwork as well.

In addition, the County will continue to reimburse employees if they have to make business calls on their personal cell phones — but calculated at the rate on their telephone plans.

Here are the basics of the legal changes — and what they mean to us in a nutshell: 

• Mobile phones are provided for “non-compensatory business purposes” at the appointing authority’s discretion and are excludable from the employee’s income as a working condition fringe benefit.
  What this means: County employees are provided cell phones not as part of their compensation — pay — but because they are necessary part of doing our jobs, to ensure we can be reached by customers when we’re away from our offices, or in emergencies.

• Department managers/supervisors are responsible for ensuring that County telecommunications systems are used cost-effectively in the support of assigned functions.  Department managers/supervisors are responsible for monitoring, limiting and controlling excessive private or personal use of the County desktop telephone and/or mobile phones, and the reimbursement to the County for personal calls made, if necessary.     
  What this means: We still need to watch over our cell phone usage to make sure we’re adhering to the spirit of this change in the rules: that employees don’t regularly use their work-issued cell phones for personal reasons — which is why they’re not considered pay, but rather, a tool we need to do our jobs.

• A manager or supervisor may ask an employee to review for accuracy and highlight any personal calls or texts.
  What this means: Yeah, OK. Pretty self-explanatory. Our managers and supervisors will be the ones to continue to monitor our cell-phone usage.

• Excessive personal calls that incur an additional cost to the County shall require reimbursement to the County.  Reimbursement shall be for actual charges as detailed in the County’s Chargeback Billing System or on the vendor statement.
  What this means. Again, this one is pretty self-explanatory. If you have a County-issued cell phone, you’re supposed to use it for work. While it’s OK to occasionally take or make a personal call, you will have to pay if you use it for personal calls excessively.

• The County will reimburse business calls made on a personal phone based on actual costs of any charges and/or fees incurred.  A copy of the individual’s personal billing statement must be provided with the request for reimbursement with the business calls highlighted.  If calls are within plan minutes, the “per minute cost” is calculated by dividing the monthly calling voice plan charge by the minutes allowed.  Multiply the cost-per-minute by the business minutes used on the mobile phone to determine the total owed.

• The County will not reimburse employees for any portion of the data plans with their personal mobile phone providers.