The 2022 Board Election is just around the corner. As a MOSERS member, your employees have the opportunity to cast their vote in the Board Election process. For active members, their vote will have an impact on who will hold two of the eleven positions on the MOSERS Board of Trustees.

The third-party election administrator mailed election notices to all eligible members. This includes all active and retired members. In addition, they also emailed eligible members who have a valid email on file with MOSERS alerting them that the election is open for voting. Encourage them to check their inboxes and cast their vote!

Eligible members will have six weeks to vote online or by phone. The election period ends on September 21, 2022. For more information on how to vote, or to see the candidate bios, check out the Board Election page.

True or False: Members must attend a MOSERS a Ready to Retire session before they can retire.

FALSE!

While it is not required, we do highly encourage members to attend at least one Ready to Retire in-person seminar or webinar before they retire. They provide members, within 5 years of retirement eligibility, valuable information about their pension benefit, including the decisions they will have to make during the retirement process. We also recommend that members meet with one of our benefit counselors prior to retirement for an in depth look at their benefits and the options they have when applying to retire. 

MOSERS Organization Chart – July 2022

MOSERS Strategic Plan – July 2022

Employee Contributions (MSEP 2011 & Judicial Plan 2011) brochure – May 2022

Glossary of Terms – April 2022

New Employee Orientation brochure – April 2022

For more information, please visit MOSERS' Online Library: https://www.mosers.org/library

Upcoming Annual Salary Verification Report

Phoenix Webpage

From the Education Desk

Rehiring Retirees

The Board Election Begins Soon

Word on the Street: Applying for Long-Term Disability Benefits 

We will release the Annual Salary Verification Report in mid-August and send a follow-up notice when the report is ready for you to view and work it.

The report is an essential step in ensuring that covered employees receive the correct basic life insurance coverage each year.

Eligible employees receive one times their annual salary in basic life insurance coverage. The amount of coverage adjusts each January according to the employee’s annual earnings in effect on July 31 of the previous year (or the employee’s first day of coverage if not covered on July 31).

• Annual earnings include normal earnings from a benefit-eligible position, including shift differential, security differential, and retention pay.
• Overtime pay and other irregular payments are excluded from annual earnings.

Additionally, if an employee is working in both a benefit-eligible and non-benefit eligible position at the same time, only pay from the benefit-eligible position is included in annual earnings.

Please email employers@mosers.org if you have questions about the annual salary verification process. You can also watch a brief video tutorial on how to work the report, if needed.

Curious about where to find the latest updates on Phoenix?

We know you have been hearing a lot about the transition to our upcoming new Pension Administration System (Phoenix). We understand all this information can be overwhelming, so we have created a place where you can find all the latest Phoenix updates. The Phoenix page is your one-stop shop for introductory materials, demo videos, process maps, FAQs, and all things Phoenix.

Ultimately, Phoenix will be the means through which we partner together to provide timely and accurate benefits to MOSERS members. As we move closer to deploying the new system in 2023, we look forward to sharing more and providing in-depth training opportunities. Stay tuned! 

We recently sent an email to employees within five years of retirement eligibility reminding them to join us for a Ready to Retire session. This is a great opportunity to learn about the decisions they will need to make and to prepare for the retirement process. To accommodate different work schedules, we have both day and evening sessions available. Employees will sign up for a session based on their plan:

• MSEP & MSEP 2000 for general state employees
• MSEP & MSEP 2000 for university employees
• MSEP 2011 for general state employees

Encourage them to register!

If you have employees who have registered for an in-person session and are unable to attend, please have them contact MOSERS in advance at (800) 827-1063 to cancel. This will open a seat in the seminar and allow us to provide an accurate headcount to the caterer, venue, etc. Attendees are welcome to bring their spouse/guest with them again! Spouses/guests must be registered to attend.

If you have employees nearing their retirement eligibility date, please encourage them to register today for a session! As with all of our member education events, HR representatives are also welcome to attend.

Please contact MOSERSEducation@mosers.org if you have any questions.

Upon meeting the termination and reemployment rules, retirees may return to work and continue receiving their monthly pension payment, as long as their position is not a benefit-eligible position.

However, if a retiree returns to work in a benefit-eligible position, their monthly pension benefit stops for any month in which they are actively employed. For example, if a retiree returns to work in a benefit-eligible position on July 27, they will not receive their pension benefit on the last working day of July. In this example, it would have been more advantageous for the retiree to delay their return to work to August 1. Please keep this provision in mind when rehiring retirees. 

A retiree reemployed in a benefit-eligible position will accrue additional service and salary credit if they work continuously for one year. When they retire again, their monthly pension payment will equal the amount they were receiving when they returned to work plus any additional benefit they may have earned during reemployment.

The 2022 Board Election is just around the corner. As a MOSERS member, your employees will have the opportunity to cast their vote in the Board Election process. For active members, their vote will have an impact on who will hold two of the eleven positions on the MOSERS Board of Trustees.

The third-party election administrator will mail an election notice on August 10 to all eligible members. This includes all active and retired members. In addition, the election administrator will email eligible members who have a valid email on file with MOSERS alerting them that the election is open for voting. Encourage them to check their inboxes and update their email information with us. 

Eligible members will have six weeks to vote online or by phone. The election period ends on September 21, 2022. For more information, or to see the candidate bios, check out the Board Election page.

True or False: Members older than age 60 cannot apply for MOSERS long-term disability (LTD) benefits.

FALSE!

A member may apply for LTD benefits at any age as long as they are not eligible for normal (unreduced) retirement. If approved, LTD benefits will end when the member:

1. Is no longer disabled and/or returns to full-time active status or refuses available employment
2. Starts receiving early (reduced) retirement
3. Is eligible for normal (unreduced) retirement
4. Starts receiving benefits under any other group LTD policy
5. Passes away

MOSERS Organization Chart – July 2022

MOSERS Strategic Plan – July 2022

Employee Contributions (MSEP 2011 & Judicial Plan 2011) brochure – May 2022

Glossary of Terms  – April 2022

New Employee Orientation brochure – April 2022

Accessing Your Annual Benefit Statement – March 2022

Board of Trustees Roles and Responsibilities – March 2022

Divorce and Your Pension Benefit brochure – March 2022

For more information, please visit MOSERS' Online Library: https://www.mosers.org/library

Phoenix Sneak Peek – Reporting Termination Dates

Newer Employees & MOSERS Webinars – Register Now!

Welcome Our New Education Supervisor! 

Employer Retirement Contribution Rates

Current Email Addresses

Travel Assistance Mobile App

In last month’s edition, we reported that leave of absence forms will be a thing of the past when Phoenix launches in 2023. We are excited to announce the same applies to termination forms! Phoenix will streamline the process for reporting employment status changes and eliminate the extra work of submitting termination forms.

For SAM II employers, Phoenix will capture terminations directly from SAM II based on the ESMT personnel action/reason code and employment status. With this, MOSERS will be notified automatically of the reason for a termination, kicking off critical behind-the-scenes processes. For example, terminations due to the death of an employee will initiate the process of contacting surviving beneficiaries to notify them of any benefits due. Therefore, it will be imperative that you enter the correct personnel action/reason code for terminations in SAM II.

For non-SAM II employers, terminations will be captured when your payroll file is submitted. User-friendly errors or warnings during payroll submission will help you identify employees that might need to be terminated if no pay was received.

Just like leaves of absence, capturing terminations is vital to administering an employee’s pension, life, and LTD benefits through MOSERS. When an employee separates, they may be eligible for future retirement benefits or could take a refund of the money they contributed to MOSERS. Capturing employment status changes automatically as they occur, rather than manually through a subsequent form submission, helps to ensure the accuracy of member records and the efficient delivery of important benefits employees rely on.

For additional reference, check out this high-level process map of Reporting Termination Dates. Keep in mind that this is just a “sneak peek,” and we will provide you with training and resources before Phoenix goes live.

It is our pleasure to introduce Amber Arnold as our new education supervisor. As a former member of the Phoenix project team and the Benefits section, with more than eight years of service working for MOSERS, Amber is an expert regarding members' benefits and employer relations. You may remember Amber’s name from last September when she presented at Benefits U. Amber will be providing employer training, educational programs to communicate benefit information, and employer procedures simply and accurately as we navigate towards the new pension administration system, Phoenix. We are thrilled to have Amber continue her work with MOSERS in the education supervisor position.

If you have employees who are newer to the state with at least six months but less than five years of service (not yet vested), encourage them to sign up for a webinar!

We have redesigned our educational programs to help members learn information about their benefits as they progress through their careers and experience different life events along the way.

Agenda

They can join us to learn about the employee benefits administered by MOSERS, including pension plan features, life insurance, long-term disability, and their personal retirement savings plan options with MO Deferred Comp. Speakers include MOSERS & MO Deferred Comp and the webinar will last approximately 1 ½ hours.

Register

To accommodate different work schedules, we have both day and evening sessions. They can register to attend by clicking the link on the Daytime or Evening sessions below, select the date they would like to attend, complete the registration information, and they are ready to go!

Daytime sessions:

9:30 am – 11:00 am

August 29

October 31

Evening session:

5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

June 27

Confirmation/Reminder Emails

Attendees will receive a confirmation and reminder email from GoTo Webinar with instructions and the link to join the webinar. These emails contain the MOSERS logo at the top and in some instances may end up in their spam folder.

The employer retirement contribution rate is calculated by MOSERS’ external actuary and is certified by the MOSERS Board of Trustees every year. As a reminder, the employer retirement contribution rates for MSEP, MSEP 2000, and MSEP 2011, as well as for the Judicial Plan and Judicial Plan 2011, are changing effective July 1, 2022.

The changes to the employer retirement contribution rates for the respective plans, effective July 1, 2022, are as follows:

There are no changes to the employer contribution rates for CURP, basic life insurance, and long-term disability benefits.   

If you are a Non-SAM II employer, please take note and adjust retirement contributions, effective July 1, 2022, as needed.

If you are a SAM II employer, contributions occur automatically as a percentage of payroll, and no additional action is required of you.

For more information about Employer Contributions, please visit our website.  

Please encourage your employees to provide us with their current email addresses.

• In order to receive their benefits, it’s important that we have their current address on file!
• Members must have a current email address on file to set up or to change their myMOSERS Online ID and password.
• This will also be important for the upcoming MOSERS Board election in August.

They can update their email and mailing address by logging in to myMOSERS, selecting Personal Information, then clicking Update Personal Information. Please note that updates to email or mailing addresses become effective by the next working day. If they are unable to do so online, please have them contact a MOSERS benefit counselor, who will be happy to assist.

Or, as a pay rep, you can update employee email addresses directly through the Missing Email Report. Log in to the MOSERS Employer Login. Once logged in, navigate to the Error Reports dropdown and select Missing Email Report. Select an employee from the report and click Update Email. Enter a valid email address for the employee and click Update. The Missing Email Report refreshes daily. Updates submitted through the report become effective the next working day. View the Error Reports Tab video for a step-by-step demonstration of the Missing Email Report beginning at minute 1:36.

The Standard has created an easy-to-use mobile app for travel assistance. This app lets members access a wide range of global emergency assistance services. This is replacing the previous wallet card.

Mobile App Features:

• Tap for Help. Use one-touch calling to reach Assist America's 24/7 Operations Center.
• Voice over Internet Protocols (VoIP). Avoid international phone charges by calling Assist America for free using a Wi-Fi connection.
• Pre-Trip Information. Access detailed country-specific information to prepare for your trip.
• Travel Alerts. Receive alerts on urgent global situations that may impact travel.
• Travel Status Indicator. Use the GPS feature to know when you're eligible for services.
• Embassy & U.S. Pharmacy Locator. Locate the nearest embassy/consulate of 23 countries and pharmacies near you (U S. pharmacies only).
• Mobile ID Card. Your Assist America ID card is conveniently stored within the app.
• Available in Seven Languages. The app is available in English, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, Thai, Bahasa, and French.

Please encourage your employees to download the app following the simple steps below.

1) Visiting Google Play or the App Store

2) Find the Assist America Mobile App

3) Enter reference number 01-AA-STD-5201 and member name

To learn more, see the Travel Assistance Flyer and Service Overview located in our online Library.

Employee Contributions (MSEP 2011 & Judicial Plan 2011) brochure – May 2022

Glossary of Terms – April 2022

New Employee Orientation brochure – April 2022

Accessing Your Annual Benefit Statement – March 2022

Board of Trustees Roles and Responsibilities – March 2022

Divorce and Your Pension Benefit brochure – March 2022

Total Compensation Calculator – January 2022

Destination Retirement Checklist (University Employees) – January 2022

Destination Retirement Checklist – January 2022

For more information, please visit MOSERS' Online Library: https://www.mosers.org/library

Phoenix Sneak Peek – Capturing Leave Events

Farewell Cindy

Contacting Employer Services by Phone

Two-Step Verification for the Employer Login

Termination and Reemployment Rules

Submit Terminations ASAP

Proper LTD Submissions

Thank YOU!