Purpose

The purpose of this bulletin is to provide agencies with instructions on how to update a Tier 6 employee’s Retirement Plan page due to the two year look-back.

Affected Employees

Tier 6 New York State Education Department and SUNY employees who are members of the ORP are affected.

Background

On March 16, 2012, the Governor signed Legislation creating Tier 6. This tier applies to employees joining a retirement system after March 31, 2012. This Legislation authorized the creation of a new Tier 6 pension plan. (Please refer to Payroll Bulletin No.1256.)

Effective first checks in April 2013, Legislation required the employee contribution rate to be based on the employee’s annual wage.

Once a Tier 6 member has reached three years of membership, his or her contribution rate is based on annual pensionable salary from two years prior*.

*Total salary should include pensionable salary from all PayServ job records, as well as agencies that are not in PayServ.

The employee contribution rates are:

The Benefit Plans and the narrative descriptions are found below.

Note: The variable contribution rates are identified within the description.

SUNY and State Education Department

Effective Dates

Changes will take effect for the paycheck dated February 3, 2021.

Eligibility Criteria

Tier 6 ORP members who enrolled in the ORP between April 1, 2012 and January 1, 2018 are eligible.

Agency Actions

Each agency is required to update the Retirement Plans page to change the Benefit Plan based on the agency’s review of the “two year look-back” salary.

Public query Q92_2_YR_LOOKBACK_SUNY_ORP_P2 will provide the employee’s earnings based by Department ID for the calendar year entered. If the query results in multiple rows for an employee, the earnings from each row must be combined to determine the “two year look-back” salary. The query will prompt for:

• Calendar Year – Enter 2019
• Coverage Elect Date (Greater than) – Enter 3/31/2012
• Coverage Elect Date (Less than) – Enter 1/2/2018

SUNY System Administration will run the query and provide each SUNY campus with the results to review the “two-year look back” salary and to make necessary updates to the Retirement Plans page.

New York State Education Department must run the query and update the Retirement Plans page accordingly.

The charts found in the “Background” section of this bulletin should be used to determine if the contribution rate has changed and an update to their Benefit Plan is needed.

The Retirement Plans page must be updated for employees with a Payroll Status of Active, Leave of Absence, Leave with Pay, and Terminated.

Agencies must adhere to the 2020-2021 Agency Submission Schedule when updating the Retirements Plan panel in PayServ to affect the February 3, 2021 check date.

The steps to update the Benefit Plan are as follows:

1. Open the Retirement Plans page. (Home>Benefits>Enroll In Benefits>Retirement Plans)
2. Enter employee's Empl ID in search box.
3. Click Search.
4. Select the correct Empl Rcd # for the corresponding Job Record (if multiple records exist).
5. Insert a row in the Coverage section and enter the payroll period begin date in the Deduction Begin Date field.
6. Enter the employee’s Date of Membership in the Election Date field. The same election date should be carried forward from the previous page.
7. Select the appropriate Benefit Plan dependent upon the employees’ total annual earnings. (Use the charts provided in the Background section to determine the new Benefit Plan)
8. Save the transaction.
9. Enter General Comments stating “Retirement Plans page updated for 2021 Two Year Look-Back.”

Questions

Questions regarding the two-year look back may be directed to SUNY U-Wide Benefits at: [email protected].

Questions regarding the PayServ entry may be directed to the Payroll Retirement Mailbox.