Table of Contents
- COMING SOON: New Features for Employees Highlights Total Value of Public Service
- 2018 Member Handbooks Now Available
- Retirement Systems Peak Season for Retirement Processing
- Remember to Update Retiree “Date of Employment” When Retiree Returns to Work
- Enhanced GoalMaker Smooths the Path to Retirement Savings
- Kudos to Employers with Contribution Accelerator
- Kudos!
COMING SOON: New Features for Employees Highlights Total Value of Public Service
Your employees (and you) will receive an email this week that highlights some exciting changes coming in May. The 2017 myNCRetirement Statement (formerly known as the Annual Benefits Statement) will post to active employees’ ORBIT accounts in May. For your employees, the myNCRetirement Statement (MRS) is a customized look at how prepared they are to retire. This award-winning publication is packed with information to help your employees prepare for the retirement they imagine. If an employee has less than one year of state or local government service or if there were errors in payroll reporting for an employee, they will not receive a MRS this year.
Also launching in May for members of the Teachers’ and State Employees’ Retirement System is the Total Benefits Statement (TBS). The TBS is a customized look at all the ways that employers contribute, including and in addition to, the employee’s salary. Now employees will be able to see just how much you value their contributions to your team!
Employees will be able to log in to ORBIT to view their TBS. As with the MRS, some employees will not receive a customized TBS, but they will see a message and graphic that explains all the ways they are compensated to promote retention.
Your employees will be notified by email when the MRS and TBS are live and available for viewing. We will make sure to share that exciting news with you as well, so you can assist with any questions.
Stay tuned!
2018 Member Handbooks Now Available
Member handbooks for all retirement systems are now posted on the Retirement Systems website. Encourage your employees to access the information-packed resources for answers to all their retirement questions.
Retirement Systems Peak Season for Retirement Processing
The months of March through July are the time of year when the N.C. Retirement Systems receives an increased number of retirement applications. We make every effort to process retirement applications as quickly as possible.
To facilitate timely application processing, members are encouraged to use the full 120 days available prior to their retirement date to sign and submit their Form 6, Claiming Your Monthly Retirement Benefit.
Upon receipt of the Form 6, the Retirement Systems will process and send additional forms to members to complete and return, including the Form 6E, Choosing Your Retirement Payment Option. Please remind your retiring employees that retirement benefits begin only after they have submitted a completed Form 6E. All forms can be found in ORBIT.
Remember to Update Retiree “Date of Employment” When Retiree Returns to Work
Retirees returning to work should be reported with the new “Date of Employment.” Failure to update the record with this new “Date of Employment” will cause a recurring error for the member’s payroll record. Be sure to remove the outdated termination information from their records before submitting the ORBIT report and include the new “Date of Employment.”
For additional information, click here. If you have questions not addressed on our website, please call our Employer Reporting group at 1-877-627-3287.
Enhanced GoalMaker Smooths the Path to Retirement Savings
We’re enhancing GoalMaker, the popular asset allocation tool available in the NC Total Retirement Plans 401(k), 457 and 403(b), to include new portfolio options—especially for early career employees and retirees. The changes “smooth the path” for retirement with new pre-retirement and post-retirement portfolios, reallocated at milestone birthdays to help better keep retirement savings asset allocations on track.
These changes mean GoalMaker continues to “glide" participants on a “path" to retirement by adjusting portfolios to a more conservative mix of assets as retirement approaches, and now will do so more often, and with less abrupt changes in allocation. With these enhancements, there's even more reason for participants to stay in the award-winning NC Total Retirement Plans family—and keep our low participant costs, strong Board oversight, customized investments and personal assistance from retirement education counselors—even after they stop working.
Funds within GoalMaker will change (We’re lowering fees again!), and its Age Adjustment Feature will be turned “on” for all participants, too, which will significantly change asset allocations. A robust communications plan to share these important changes with employers and participants is underway. Participants will receive a detailed letter in April, (which will be emailed to employers and also available at NCPlans.prudential.com).
Kudos to Employers with Contribution Accelerator
This month, you’ll notice even more KUDOS than before! Starting now, we are giving a special shout out to our employers who add Contribution Accelerator, the NC 401(k) and NC 457 Plan feature that helps employees commit to regular increases in their supplemental plan payroll contributions. Employers must choose to offer this feature, which automatically increases participants’ payroll contribution rates each year by one percentage point (stopping at an eight percent total contribution rate). Doing so is another easy way for you to help employees save with these award-winning Plans. For more information, please contact your Retirement Education Counselor.
Kudos!
