Table of Contents
- Report Fraud Attempts Promptly to RSD
- Employer Contact for Online Retirements
- Legislative Information Regarding Disability Recipients
- Scam alert
- Employer Training Series
- Annual Participant Administrative Costs in NC 401(k)/457 Plans Beat Peer Average
- Kudos!
Report Fraud Attempts Promptly to RSD
We understand that state employers have important protocols in place that must be followed when fraud attempts are suspected or detected. As a part of your official protocol, we ask that you inform RSD immediately if you suspect or detect fraudulent activity on your networks or systems, or on the networks or systems of any of your vendor/service providers. Please call RSD’s Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Hotline at 1-855-90FRAUD (1-855-903-7283) or email retfraud@nctreasurer.com. Doing so will help us to act quickly to ensure fraud attempts do not adversely affect your employees’ information in our ORBIT system or many vendor/service provider systems. We appreciate your partnership with us as we work to ensure members’ privacy and RSD’s system security.
Employer Contact for Online Retirements
The Retirement Systems Division is currently developing an online retirement application for our members. As with paper applications, we will need a contact within your agency to verify your employees' information at retirement. Please provide contact information for that person using our Survey here. A general email account that is monitored by multiple people and will not change is best for this purpose. If that's not available for your agency, please provide contact information for a second contact in case the first contact is unavailable when one of your employees retires.
We will be rolling out the online retirement application later this year. Stay tuned!
Legislative Information Regarding Disability Recipients
Effective July 1, eligible state employees will receive a pay increase of two percent (or a salary increase to $31,200, whichever is greater). Employees currently on short-term disability may be eligible for this increase if they have not terminated employment. Members currently on long-term disability are not eligible for this increase nor the one-time pension supplement granted by the N.C. General Assembly this year. The Retirement Systems Division will send out a full legislative digest for each affected system in August.
Scam Alert
Some of our members have reported to the N.C. Attorney General's office that they have received phone calls or emails about unpaid fines from someone who claims to be from the N.C. Department of State Treasurer. DST will never call to ask members for financial information, threaten arrest or demand that members send us a prepaid debit card. If any of your employees or retirees receive a scam call or email, please ask them to report it to 1-877-5-NO-SCAM. For more details, click here.
Employer Training Series
The Retirement Systems Division is offering a series of employer trainings for Human Resource Personnel, employees assisting in retirement related matters and employees responsible for ORBIT Payroll Reporting. Training sessions are held in our office or via a simulcast webinar. Attend only the training you need or attend the entire series and receive a certificate from the NC Retirement Systems.
A full list of the TSERS and LGERS training sessions can be found on the Employer Training page of our website. Do you have a lot of staff that should be trained? Email us at employertraining@nctreasurer.com if you are interested in hosting an employer training at your location.
Annual Participant Administrative Costs in NC 401(k)/457 Plans Beat Peer Average
Participant costs continue to top the list of key concerns of defined contribution executives, according to a recent survey published by an industry consultant. That’s certainly the case here when it comes to the NC Total Retirement Plans 401(k), 457 and 403(b). Fees can play a critical role in accumulating the necessary assets to retire comfortably. Staff and the Supplemental Retirement Board of Trustees work tirelessly to leverage our size to make available robust defined contribution options for all state agencies and local governments. These plans offer high-quality features and benefits at very competitive costs, a combination that many employers would most likely not be able to access on their own.
Recently, we participated in a benchmarking survey* to gauge where we stand on participant costs when compared to our peers across the country. The results you can see from the chart indicate that the work that staff and the Board are doing is paying off! Total annual recordkeeping and administrative fees per participant for the NC Total Retirement Plans 401(k) and 457 are approximately $47 per participant, or 0.13 percent of assets, compared with an average/median of $73/$66 per participant, or 0.13/0.11 percent of assets.
The plans continue to be a fantastic benefit for participants and for you as employers who seek to offer a competitive benefit package to recruit and retain key personnel. Make sure you’re taking advantage of this wonderful benefit and encouraging all of your employees to participate. Learn more at NCPlans.prudential.com.
*Research by RVK, based on a survey of 21 plans using annual data as of December 31, 2016. Click here to read the full report.
Kudos!
