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October 6, 2023
One responsibility of a retirement coordinator is to complete the preliminary and final certifications for retirement. During this process, you will provide final employment information that allows OPERS to confirm eligibility and calculate benefits. OPERS sends an email to the agency coordinator(s) when it’s time to process each certification. It is important to complete these promptly. Without certified information, we are unable to retire the member and pay out their benefit.
User manuals for both preliminary and final certification processes are available in the Help menu after logging in to the OPERS Employer Portal.
You can change who has access to the Employer Website and the ability to process a certification by completing the Employer and Retirement Coordinator Updates form.
Rehires and Transfers
You must enroll all rehire or agency transfer employees who are eligible to join OPERS. These members will not be able to vest, retire or withdraw from OPERS without an online enrollment.
Coordinator Updates
When someone leaves or joins your organization in the role of a retirement coordinator, make it official with OPERS. Complete the Employer and Retirement Coordinator Updates form to add, remove, or update someone from our records.
Retroactive Pay
Retroactive pay raises need to be entered separately on supplemental payroll. Do not combine retroactive pay with regular payroll.
Payroll Reporting
Be sure to lock your records when you have finished your payroll reporting. Making changes without locking will cause the totals in our system to not match the certificate. If you need help with processing payroll, you can reach out to Nancy Boysen at (405) 585-6728.
Withdrawal Payback and Service Purchase Payroll Deductions (ARCU)
OPERS recently put into place an improved process for members requesting to pay back a withdrawal or make a service purchase by payroll deduction:
- First, the member will contact OPERS to request to pay by payroll deduction. OPERS will send an email to both the member and main retirement coordinator. This email will have instructions and the required form.
- Then, the member will select the period, between one year and five years, when they would like their installment payments to occur. They will sign and date the form and then provide it to their main retirement coordinator.
- The retirement coordinator and agency payroll office will update their payroll files to set up the installments and add an end date to the form. The end date will be the pay date of the final deduction based on the start date given by OPERS and the duration selected by the member. The payroll office will email the form to OPERS’ Nancy Boysen (nboysen@opers.ok.gov) to confirm the payroll deduction.
This process has fewer steps, making it easier for the member, and no longer requires an original form. Emailing these forms versus mailing them back to OPERS will hopefully make it easier for our retirement coordinators, too!
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