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Deals and People July 10, 2025
MarylandSaves Elects State Treasurer Dereck Davis as Board Chair
Davis has been part of the program’s executive committee since he was elected state treasurer in 2021.
Reported by Emily Boyle
Dereck Davis
The Maryland Small Business Retirement Savings Board, which oversees the management and operation of the Maryland Small Business Retirement Savings Program, has elected State Treasurer Dereck Davis as its board chair.
Davis has been a member of MarylandSaves’ executive committee since his election as state treasurer by the Maryland General Assembly in December 2021. He succeeds Joshua Gotbaum, chair for the last seven years and a former head of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, who will continue to serve on the board.
MarylandSaves, a state-sponsored payroll deduction program, was created under state law requiring most Maryland employers to offer employees a retirement savings plan. The program helps savers establish and contribute to a Roth individual retirement account known as a WorkLife Savings Account.
“MarylandSaves is easy for employers to manage and offers an emergency savings feature that lets savers access their contributions to cover unexpected expenses,” said MarylandSaves Executive Director Glenn Simmons in a statement. “Employees are enrolled automatically, have full control over their accounts, can choose investment options, change their savings rate, or pause and reactivate their automatic savings later.”
The organization also spearheaded an emergency savings offering that was unique at its inception because it offers an emergency savings fund for the first $1,000 of contributions and a target-date fund for future contributions.
“MarylandSaves’ program of emergency and retirement savings through payroll deductions is already helping thousands of Maryland businesses and tens of thousands of Marylanders,” said Gotbaum in a statement. “I look forward to Treasurer Davis’s leadership as MarylandSaves continues to innovate for Marylanders and other programs throughout our nation.”
Maryland was the sixth state program to launch when it debuted in September 2022, according to the Center for Retirement Initiatives at Georgetown University, and has the third-highest average contribution rate of the 11 active state programs at 5.7%, as of June 30, 2025. It had 1,715 participating employers and 12,797 worker accounts, as of April 2025.