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Deadline to make changes to a retiree’s account

Employers now have 240 days from retirement to make changes 

On January 1, 2024, House Bill (HB) 2283 established a deadline for making changes to a retiree’s pre-retirement account. Retirees, PERS’ staff, and now employers, too, are unable to make changes to a retiree’s account after 240 days into their retirement. After 240 days, the account is locked and cannot be changed (see “Exceptions” below). 

What does this mean? When a PERS member retires, PERS takes all the wage and service data submitted by the retiree’s employers over the retiree’s career and uses it to calculate their retirement benefits. Once PERS calculates the benefits, we send the retiree a Notice of Entitlement report that lists information including their benefit amount, employment history, what calculation method was used, and their beneficiary or beneficiaries. The retiree has 240 days from the date of the Notice of Entitlement to verify the accuracy of the information and dispute any errors. (Disputing the information does not delay the onset of retirement benefits.)

Prior to HB 2283, employers had no deadline for requesting changes to a retiree’s account. For example, if an employer discovered salary that they failed to report to PERS 10 years ago, the employer could ask PERS to reopen the retiree’s account to add those missing wages, requiring PERS to recalculate the retiree’s pension and Individual Account Program (IAP) account.

Starting this year, employers can no longer request changes to a PERS account past the deadline. If an employer reporter tries to post hours and wages to a retired account, they will get the error message “S-Cannot report wage or employment information” because this member is retired or their account is closed. PERS’ staff will not be able to reopen the account to correct the hour and/or wage information.

What should you do?

To make changes to a recent retiree’s pre-retirement account, contact your ESC representative to ensure you can still make changes.

Disputing information in the Notice of Entitlement

A retiree can dispute the accuracy of the information used to calculate their benefits by filling out and emailing or mailing a Dispute of Notice of Entitlement form. The dispute must be received by PERS by the 240th day after the date of the Notice of Entitlement or the 240th day after the first retirement payment, whichever is later.

Tier One/Tier Two form

OPSRP form

Exceptions

After the 240-day deadline, a participating employer may not modify a member’s creditable service, retirement credit, salary, employee contributions, or unused sick leave, unless specifically required by one of the following:

• To comply with a judgment, administrative order, arbitration award, conciliation agreement, settlement agreement, or other legal agreement entered into after the 240-day deadline.
• To correct information related to military service.

Note about locking data

HB 2283 also gave PERS the ability to lock data for both members and employers broadly in other circumstances. This will not be undertaken without providing both member and employer stakeholders the opportunity to review the member data. PERS will have to undertake administrative rulemaking to specify rules for data locking generally.

To receive updates about future agency administrative rulemaking, subscribe to the PERS Administrative Rulemaking topic in GovDelivery.  

Employer reporters

Reporting Work Share payments

For Work Share participation on and after January 1, 2024

Starting January 1, 2024, payments employees receive from the Oregon Employment Department (OED) Work Share program are now “subject salary.” This means that if you have an employee on Work Share this year, you must report the payments received by OED as subject salary. Add the payment amount to the employee’s salary and report the total in the Subject Salary (Regular) field. The total is subject to PERS pension and IAP contributions.

About Work Share

The Work Share program offers an alternative to laying off staff. Employees who qualify for Work Share receive supplemental pay to help them continue receiving a living wage while working fewer hours.

The employer applies for Work Share benefits for their employees. Once approved, employees submit claims, much like the process for receiving unemployment pay.

Normally, wages from a third party (i.e., other than the employer) are not subject salary; that is, subject to earning PERS benefits. House Bill 2283 (2023) added an exception to this rule for Work Share payments starting on and after January 1, 2024. It does not affect Work Share payments received before this date.

Learn more on the OED Work Share webpage.

What you need to do

If you have an employee receiving payments from the Work Share program, you need to work with OED to receive the employee’s payment information. To report this information to PERS, do the following:

1. Submit a Demographic Correction Request (DCR) to notify PERS that the employee is participating in Work Share. Include the start and end dates.

2. When you fill out a Detail 2 wage record for the employee, include their Work Share wages in the Subject Salary (Regular) field. Include associated hours in the Hours Worked (Regular) field. Calculate the employee’s 6% IAP contribution on that total (if applicable).

Note: Remember that an employee must work or be on paid leave for the major fraction of a month to receive service credit for that month.

Employer reporters

Preparing for member annual statements

Make sure employee addresses are up to date by February 28

All currently employed PERS members should ensure that their mailing address with PERS is correct. PERS member annual statements will be mailed the second quarter of 2024 to the address PERS has on file as of February 28. Your staff can check the address PERS has on file by logging into their Online Member Services (OMS) account. From the Account Home page, click “Member” under Account Type.

What should a member do if their address is incorrect?

If the address shown in OMS is not correct, direct the employee to follow the applicable instructions below:

• State employees: Update your address in Workday.
• All other employees (e.g., schools, local agencies): Contact your Payroll or Human Resources department and request that they update your mailing address through EDX.

All address updates must be submitted before Monday, February 28. PERS Member Services cannot update mailing addresses for members.

Financial professionals

Employer Rate Projection Tool updated

ERPT updated with 2022 data

In January, we updated the Employer Rate Projection Tool (ERPT) with 2022 data from the 2023 system-wide actuarial valuation report.

You can access the updated tool and user guide on the ERPT webpage.

Employer reporters

Get all 2023 reports posted this month

Receive earnings paid by the PERS Trust on all reports submitted by year end

Employer reporters need to submit all their 2023 Regular reports (and older) by March 5. This achievement has numerous financial and professional benefits. Also, employers who pay their invoices by ACH Credit (push) must pay their invoice by March 12.

Here are the top eight benefits to submitting all 2023 reports by March 5 for your employer reporting team and your bottom line.

Need help?

Contact the Employer Service Center to ask questions and get one-on-one reporting help.