| 
Trenton
-- State Treasurer John E. McCormac and the New Jersey State Employers
Deferred Compensation Board announced today the selection of a Prudential
Retirement as the third-party administrator for the New Jersey State
Employees Deferred Compensation Plan (NJSEDCP). The selection follows
a review of the plan by an independent consultant, which recommended
changes to enhance the Plan to take full advantage of developments in
the marketplace.
“In
order to provide our employees with the best tools available to help
secure their retirement plans, we took a long, hard look at New Jersey’s
deferred compensation plan,” said Treasurer McCormac. “Following
our review, we prepared an RFP that challenged bidders to make improvements
and enhancements to our plan while keeping administrative costs to a
minimum. We are confident that this selection will achieve our goal
of bringing New Jersey’s plan into the 21st century, offering
employees more choices, enhanced services and improved satisfaction
from their sheltered earnings,” he said.
A
business of New Jersey-based Prudential Financial, Prudential Retirement
was selected after a review of six proposals as part of a competitive
bid process managed by the Purchase Bureau, Division of Purchase and
Property, on behalf of the Division of Pensions and Benefits and the
Division of Investment (DOI).
"Prudential's
proposal offered a diverse and broad array of institutional investments
and state-of-the-art services and tools to support the needs of the
state employees participating in the plan," McCormac said.
“Prudential
Financial is honored and proud to have the opportunity to serve the
retirement needs of thousands of New Jersey State employees who participate
in this plan,” said Arthur F. Ryan, chairman and CEO of Prudential
Financial.
“As a company, our focus is to help individuals and institutions
grow and protect their wealth, and we look forward to putting our retirement
experience and resources to work for our home State of New Jersey,”
Ryan added.
The
Treasurer noted that the new proposal’s featured options for participating
State employees include:
 |
Comprehensive,
targeted education on deferred compensation planning issues, topics
and strategies; |
|
A broad array
of top-performing, brand-name investment choices from leading investment
managers (employees will have the option of retaining their current
investment selections, but will not be able to make new contributions
or transfer funds to those options once the Plan transitions); |
|
A highly competitive
Stable Value Fund; |
|
An expanded
fund menu covering a wide variety of asset classes that far exceeds
what is currently offered. |
|
Account access
and deferred compensation planning support 24-hour a day, seven
days a week through interactive online tools and an automated phone
system, as well as access to Call Center professionals available
to answer questions; |
|
On-line access
to asset allocation and rebalancing tools to help employees manage
their own investments on a timely basis; |
|
A "daily
valued" environment, which means fund performance will be updated
at the close of the market each day, providing up-to-date fund information;
and |
|
Quarterly
statements that provide clear, personalized information about the
program and the performance of funds. |
NJSEDCP
has been internally administered by the Division of Pensions and Benefits
since 1986, and the plan’s investments have been managed by the
Division of Investment since the plan’s inception in 1982. NJSEDCP’s
expanded services provide for continuation of the Plan's four options
managed by the State for those members who elect to retain their current
investment offerings. The investment management of these accounts will
remain under the purview of the DOI, while book-keeping functions for
these and all other accounts will be transferred to the third-party
vendor.
Approximately
30,000 state (or eligible agency, authority, commission or instrumentality)
employees currently participate in the plan. There are 146,000 eligible
public sector employees. The Deferred Compensation Plan has $1.5 billion
in assets.
Treasurer
McCormac said that additional information about the benefits of the
improved program will be provided to State employees over the next several
weeks prior to the plan revision’s effective date of
January 1, 2006.
|
