Filling out the Employer Data form to join PERS

Section A: Basis for participation

This section is asking your reason for joining PERS. Is your organization new or do you have a new collective bargaining agreement?

• “EE transfer from” is only checked when employees from one public employer are transferring to another public employer who does participate in PERS. In this situation, the employer is sent an Employee Transfer form from PERS, which commits them to participating only in PERS for 12 months.

Section B: Employer information

ESC will provide your employer number and effective date of participation.

Section C: Plan information

1. Class/Joining: This section is asking what kind of jobs your employees do, called their job classification.

   • Check the Police or Firefighter box if you have police or fire employees.
   • Check the General Service box for other types of employees who are not police officers or firefighters.
   • Check All if you have school employees.
   • Number of PERS employees: Number of employees you currently have.

2. Contribution type

   This is asking how you want to pay for your employee’s 6% Individual Account Program (IAP) contribution

   • Employer-paid pre-tax (EPPT).

     Employers increase their employees’ salaries by 6% to cover the pre-tax IAP contribution.

     Participation in EPPT requires an employer to:

     • Have a written employment policy or agreement stipulating an EPPT contribution type (a collective bargaining agreement or resolution).
     • Agree to pay EPPT contributions for all employees within a classification.
     • Contribute the full 6% contribution.

   • Member paid pre-tax (MPPT).

     Employers selecting MPPT deduct the 6% contribution from their employees’ (i.e., the PERS member) salary prior to calculating the tax deduction.

     If your organization chooses MPPT, state the following in your resolution:

     • Employees do not have the option of receiving the salary payment and paying the PERS employee contribution directly.
     • An employee’s reported salary on the W-2 form for tax purposes will be reduced by the amount of the employee’s contributions.

   • Member Paid After-Tax.

     You can also decide to deduct the 6% contribution from employees’ wages after all taxes are deducted.

Section D: Sick leave (Chapter 238 Tier One or Tier Two only)

This section is asking if you want to participate in the unused sick leave program. The program is only available to existing PERS members who are in the Tier One or Tier Two plan. The program applies a portion of these members’ unused sick leave hours toward their retirement pension amount. Participation in the sick leave program does not increase your employer rate.

Your employees who have never been members of PERS will be members of the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Plan (OPSRP), which does not give members any credit for their unused sick leave at termination or retirement.

If you choose to participate in the unused sick leave program, you will need to calculate and report unused sick leave hours for a Tier One or Tier Two employee upon termination (i.e., they quit, get fired, or get laid off) or retirement.

To participate, in addition to checking the box in section D on the Employer Data form, send PERS a signed copy of your governing board’s decision to participate in the program.

Section E: Reporting frequency.

This is how often you will report your employees’ wages and hours to PERS. Select a frequency that most closely matches your payroll cycle.

Section F: Reporting officer information and signature.

Include the information and signature of someone at your organization who has financial authority, such as your chief financial officer, chief executive officer, or school principal.