Industry News

On May 11, 2023, several national organizations that represent state and local governments, elected officials, finance officers, employee organizations and retirement systems jointly submitted comments to the U.S. Treasury Department (the Treasury) regarding pending regulatory guidance on retirement provisions under the SECURE 2.0 Act. Collectively, the organizations urged the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to recognize the state and local statutory and regulatory governance structures for public retirement plans related to regulations impacted by the new law.

In the comment letter, they cautioned that governmental plans may need additional time to amend state and local statutes to establish operational compliance with some of the recently-enacted provisions. Since governmental plans are exempt from ERISA, they stated that those plans “should be afforded reasonable, good-faith compliance with applicable state and local statutes, regulations and definitions.” 

The organizations that submitted the joint comments included the National Council on Teacher Retirement (NCTR), National Conference of Public Employee Retirement Systems (NCPERS), National Association of State Retirement Administrators (NASRA), National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), National Association of Counties (NACo), United States Conference of Mayors (USCM), National League of Cities (NLC), International City/County Management Association (ICMA), National Association of State Treasurers (NAST), Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA), National Association of State Auditors Comptrollers and Treasurers (NASACT), International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), National Association of Police Organizations (NAPO), and National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators (NAGDCA).

The letter is available on NCPERS’ website here.