State Universities Retirement System

NOMINATOR COMMENTS

When members start their careers with a SURS-covered employer, they are required to participate in one of the core qualified 401(a) retirement plans: the SURS Traditional Pension Plan, SURS Portable Pension Plan or SURS Retirement Savings Plan (formerly the Self-Managed Plan). These plans provide valuable benefits for retirement readiness. However, some members may need additional savings to supplement those benefits to maintain a comfortable lifestyle in retirement. SURS members do not contribute to Social Security.

The SURS Deferred Compensation Plan is a voluntary 457(b) plan created to provide members an avenue to save more and generate additional income in retirement. The SURS DCP has been carefully designed to provide lifetime monthly income to address the anticipated shortfall and supplement the monthly income members will receive from their SURS 401(a) pension. The default investment option is the SURS Lifetime Income Strategy. This target-date portfolio is managed by professionals and designed to help members build retirement wealth while working and generate guaranteed income for life in retirement. As members approach retirement, they have the option to allocate a portion of their money to a Secure Income Portfolio that will provide guaranteed monthly retirement income that they cannot outlive―and it all happens automatically.

Mark Rowe, Defined Contribution Plan Manager, State Universities Retirement System
Photograph by Matt Kalinowski

PLANSPONSOR: How would you describe your organization? Is there anything unique about its demographics?

State Universities Retirement System: SURS serves more than 255,000 higher education employees at 61 colleges and universities across the state of Illinois.  Our members come from diverse backgrounds and include both staff and faculty employees in multiple professions including professors, researchers, building service workers, and administrators. SURS is a mission-driven organization. We focus on offering quality service in a caring manner while providing our members the benefits they have earned and been promised as they spent their career in advancing higher education in Illinois.

PLANSPONSOR: What are you most proud of as it relates to your retirement plan offering?

State Universities Retirement System: Our 401(a) defined contribution plan, the Retirement Savings Plan, was redesigned in 2020, and our 457(b) supplemental plan, the SURS Deferred Compensation Plan, was added in 2021. We are proud of the careful attention to plan design that was given to both these plans. We offer our members a strong mix of investment options to meet their needs and a lifetime income solution as the default investment option—the SURS Lifetime Income Strategy—which provides guaranteed income for life with significantly more flexibility than a traditional fixed annuity. The LIS acts much like a DB plan, but within a DC plan structure. It provides DC plan members the ability to have peace of mind through a guaranteed monthly paycheck, and it can all happen automatically. Further, the DCP has auto-enrollment and auto-escalation built in. These features help our members save more for retirement and, with the LIS, build additional monthly income for life. This is especially beneficial to our Tier 2 SURS members whose benefits are less generous than are their Tier 1 counterparts’.

PLANSPONSOR: Please cite any noteworthy initiatives you have taken in the past 24 to 36 months that have produced results to improve your plan, and describe the results.

State Universities Retirement System: Automatic enrollment was added to the 457(b) plan for all new hires who started after July 1, 2023. Automatic escalation followed shortly, effective July 1, 2024.

The number of employees who were auto-enrolled and remained in the default investment option—the SURS Lifetime Income Strategy—was 8,687 (98.1%), and 87% of all DCP participants are 100% invested in the SURS Lifetime Income Strategy. The plan participation rate increased to 25% from 4%.

PLANSPONSOR: What challenges do you face in plan administration or participant engagement?

State Universities Retirement System: Most members have access to supplemental retirement savings through their employer 403(b) plan or the State of Illinois Deferred Compensation Plan. SURS does not receive the participation status of these other supplemental plans, so this adds a layer of complexity to the outreach knowing that many members already were saving. The new SURS DCP provides SURS members another option to save for retirement through a plan that is overseen by a trusted fiduciary. However, partnering with our employers to make sure employees are well-informed about their options can be challenging.

PLANSPONSOR: What does winning Plan Sponsor of the Year mean to you and your employer?

State Universities Retirement System: We care deeply about our members and providing them with options that will let them live comfortably in their well-earned retirement years. Significant time, research and thought went into the plan design of our DC plans, and it is an honor for our team to be recognized for that important work.

This year, for our Plan Sponsor of the Year profiles, we are publishing Q&As based on the finalists’ applications and nominator comments. Responses are edited and may be paraphrased. In cases where the finalist self-nominated or, on its application, referred judges to the nomination for the answer, we have attributed those nominator answers to the plan sponsor.