Just the other day, a public agency client contacted us to find out what to do with a participant’s 457(b) plan deferral election following the participant’s untimely death due to COVID. As with most cases, cities and special districts would owe the former employee...
By Jeff Chang A recently issued IRS private letter ruling may provide public agencies and their employees with another way to give employees more control over the types of retirement benefits they will eventually receive. As we previously reported, governmental...
By Jeff Chang Given the current circumstances, many public agencies are finding ways to use health reimbursement arrangements as creative and cost-effective benefits for their employees and former employees. As explained in earlier posts, HRAs possess a number of...
By Jeff Chang Public agency employers trying to recruit or retain highly skilled or highly paid younger workers (e.g., doctors, nurses, IT specialists, engineers) may want to take advantage of a limited employer-paid benefit under the CARES Act. This limited-time...
By Jeff Chang With overall required contribution rates increasing at an alarming rate, most CalPERS employers – particularly those with significant "classic" safety populations – are looking for help to pay for these obligations. We continue to see tremendous...
By Jeff Chang Perhaps the biggest news coming out of California’s Legislature this year was the passage of Assembly Bill 5 – the new law that codifies the 2018 Dynamex case and which imposes a new test for determining employee or independent contractor status for...
By Jeff Chang Many cities and special districts establish and maintain more 457(b) plans than they really need. We routinely see public agencies with as many as two, three or four 457(b) plans. How and why does this happen? And, are there any advantages or...
By Jeff Chang Due to the IRS’ different treatment of private sector and public agency boards of directors, it comes as little surprise that many California special districts and public agencies continue to classify their board members as independent contractors and...
By Jeff Chang Almost 4 years ago, we discussed an IRS private letter ruling that raised serious concerns about public agency money purchase pension plans. The ruling allowed employees to "opt-in" to, or elect, their own rate of employee contribution. It was expected...
By: Jeff Chang We often are asked to review the tax and employee benefits provisions of employment agreements between public agencies and their key executives. Because we recently have come across the same problem in several of these contracts, I decided to share with...
By: Jeff Chang A recently issued IRS private letter ruling (PLR) puts the kibosh on the fairly common practice of allowing public agency employees to elect whether and at what level to participate in the agency's mandatory contribution pension plan. This plan design...
By: Jeff Chang Because many of our public agency clients have collectively-bargained employees, we continue to see a variety of efforts by employers and their bargaining partners to make the most of limited compensation and benefits dollars. Sometimes, the parties...
By: Jeff Chang Recently, I spoke to a roomful of public agency human resources managers. As I sometimes do, I took a few informal surveys of my audience. One of the questions I posed was: "How many of your agencies allow employees to cash out some or all of their...