Purpose
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
New York State employees who are members of the VDC
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 that included a Voluntary Defined Contribution Plan. (Please refer to Bulletin 1256)
Effective with the 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:
| Wages | Contribution Rate |
| $45,000.00 or less | 3% |
| $45,000.01 to $55,000.00 | 3.5% |
| $55,000.01 to $75,000.00 | 4.5% |
| $75,000.01 to $100,000.00 | 5.75% |
| More than $100,000.01 | 6% |
The Benefit Plans and the narrative descriptions are found below.
Note: The variable contribution rates are identified within the description.
| Benefit Plan | Description |
| T6V030 | TIAA VDC 3PCT |
| T6V035 | TIAA VDC 3.5PCT |
| T6V045 | TIAA VDC 4.5PCT |
| T6V575 | TIAA VDC 5.75PCT |
| T6V060 | TIAA VDC 6PCT |
Effective Date(s)
Changes will take effect for the paycheck dated February 20, 2019
Eligibility Criteria
Tier 6 VDC members who enrolled in the VDC between July 1, 2013 and December 31, 2015
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 TWO_YEAR_LOOKBACK_VDC will provide the employee’s earnings 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 2017.
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.
The steps to update the Benefit Plan are as follows:
- Open the Retirement Plans page. (Home>Benefits>Enroll In Benefits>Retirement Plans)
- Enter employee's Empl ID in search box.
- Click Search.
- Select the correct Empl Rcd # for the corresponding Job Record (if multiple records exist).
- Insert a row in the Coverage section and enter the payroll period begin date in the Deduction Begin Date field.
- Enter the employee’s Date of Membership in the Election Date field. The same election date should be carried forward from the previous page.
- 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)
- Save the transaction.
- Enter General Comments stating “Retirement Plans page updated for 2019 Two Year Look-back.”
Questions
Questions regarding the VDC two-year look back should be directed to Dave Morrell at SUNY: (518) 320-1430 or [email protected].
Questions regarding the PayServ entry should be directed to the Payroll Retirement mailbox.