Table of Contents
- It's All in a Day's Work - Reporting School Personnel
- We Want to Hear From You
- Defining the Terms
- Are You One of the 1,100 Employers that Participate in NC's Supplemental Retirement Plans?
- Upcoming Training and Retirement Planning Conferences
- Kudos!
Reporting School Personnel
It is important that personnel at school systems, universities and community colleges adhere to the following reminder regarding school personnel reporting:
To ensure that your employees receive proper service credit in their Retirement Systems memberships, please report employees with the correct RSP-Retirement Service Period type and the correct RSP dates in accordance with the number of full or partial calendar months in which they are expected to work during a school year.
The Retirement Service Period is not based on the number of checks the school personnel receive in a given school year.
- Example of an 11-month employee: RSP dates 8/10/2014- 6/10/15 includes 11 full or partial calendar months. Report as 11-month Retirement Service Period type.
- Example of a 10-month employee: RSP dates: 8/10/2014 – 5/15/2015
- Includes 10 full or partial calendar months. Report as 10-month Retirement Service Period type.
What's Missing?
With the wide variety of employers across the state of North Carolina, we recognize the broad interests and needs of our employer community. We are enhancing The Monitor to ensure each issue has something for everyone. Our goal is to provide the information, highlights and resources that benefit you and your role in supporting the employees that serve North Carolina. So, the question is: What is missing? What other topics would you like to see covered in The Monitor? Your input and needs will drive the content so The Monitor can be a better resource for all employers. Simply reply to the email you received with the link to the Monitor or send an email to chris.frazier@nctreasurer.com to give us your suggestions!
Defining the Terms
Contribution: Contributions to the retirement systems by employees (6% of monthly salary) and the required employer’s monthly contributions are invested, and the contributions, interest and investment earnings are used to pay future lifetime benefits for vested employees who have not withdrawn their contributions.
Beneficiary: If something happens to a member of the retirement systems, the payout of each of their NC Total Retirement Plans (including the NC pension plan and all supplemental plans) is governed by the beneficiary designation on file with each, different plan provider. In most cases, payouts are not made based on the relationship of the beneficiary to the deceased member at the time of death.
Beneficiaries should be updated with complete, accurate information. Designations and updates should be made in ORBIT for active employee and retiree death benefits. If you have an employee that participates in NC Supplemental Retirement Plans (NC 401(k), NC 457 or NC 403(b)), designations and updates are required through the member’s online account for each individual plan.
Refund of Contributions: If an employee leaves employment with an employer who is participating in one of the retirement systems, that employee may request a refund of their contributions. State law prohibits the retirement systems from making a refund earlier than 60 days after the employee leaves employment. If the employee withdraws their retirement contributions, they forfeit their retirement service credit and rights to all benefits associated with the service for that time period, including medical coverage through the State Health Plan, if applicable. If the employee leaves employment with a participating employer and does not take a refund of their contributions, they will retain their benefits and rights should they return to state or local government service later.
Are you one of the 1,100 employers that participate in North Carolina’s Supplemental Retirement Plans? 
Over the past few months, the Supplemental Retirement Plans team and Prudential, the recordkeeper of the plans, have been looking at ways to help our participating employers navigate required operational functions while providing employees with a valuable financial benefit for retirement. During this process, we discovered there is a need for an Employer Education program that provides in-depth content for business functions, such as plan administration, payroll deductions, loan administration and more. This educational program is currently in the development phase. Stay up-to-date with the program’s progress by making sure that we have accurate contact information, key staff and email addresses. This can be sent by email 
to ncplans@prudential.com or by calling 866-NCPLANS.
It’s MORE than just an account! Log in to the Plan Sponsor website to make full use of the self-service tasks and tools that are already available to you, including: managing participants, downloading reports and a variety of tools and educational resources.
Did You Know? Employees that participate in the Supplemental Retirement Plans – NC 401(k), NC 457 or NC403(b) - have the option of staying in the plan after separation of employment or retirement? The strong oversight, low fees and Retirement Education Counselors accessibility are just a few of the benefits if your employees elect to stay in the Plan(s) after they have stopped working.
Kudos!
