Fiscal Year-End Reminders

At the end of each school year, school division employers must separate the following employees:

• Retirees working in designated critical shortage positions – teachers, administrators, specialized student support personnel and bus drivers
• Retiree School Security Officers

From the report repository in myVRS Navigator, you can run the Return-to-Work Exception Positions Report for a list of each employee you must separate at the end of the school term.

If a retiree in one of these exception positions returns for next school year, then you will submit a new certification of eligibility form:

• Certification of Eligibility for Critical Shortage Teachers or Administrators (VRS-160)
• Certification of Eligibility for Retiree School Security Officers (VRS-160C)
• Certification of Eligibility for Critical Shortage Bus Drivers (VRS-160D)
• Certification of Eligibility for Critical Shortage Specialized Student Support Positions (VRS-160S)

Enroll the retiree in myVRS Navigator with the appropriate job name:

• Critical Shortage Teacher
• Critical Shortage Bus Driver
• Critical Shortage Specialized Student Support
• Retiree School Security Officer

You may need to update salary information for some or all employees. If you report salary increases to VRS for July, you also should initiate salary changes in your payroll system to ensure you collect the full contribution amount for July.

No additional action is required. The salary changes will be updated as usual in myVRS Navigator.

Employers that are certified by VRS to submit batch files will use the regular maintenance file to submit salary changes.

An on-demand Salary Report is available to help you manage salary changes. The report allows you to record all salary changes and then submit them as a single file. You can access the report in the Report Repository.

Note Hybrid Retirement Plan members with salary changes will require updates to the contribution submission file with MissionSquare Retirement.

myVRS Navigator automatically renews contracts for all returning covered contract employees, regardless of contract length (nine, 10, 11 or 12 months). The process will be triggered 11 business days after you confirm the previous month's snapshot, and will only advance the contract start date by one year. The contract length and number of months paid will remain unchanged.

If you need to make changes to a contract employee's contract start date, contract length or number of months paid, do so within the 10-business-day window after confirming your snapshot and before auto-renewal of contracts. In instances when a contract employee's contract is changing in the new fiscal year, the employer should initiate a job/contract change in myVRS Navigator.

myVRS Navigator will display an error message if you attempt to update or correct current year or prior year contract details during the deferred off-contract period for less-than-12-month employees who are paid over 12 months. The built-in check ensures accurate calculation and posting of deferred contributions to member records.

Batch reporters may submit contract changes through the batch file upload process. VRS will then update any contract start dates not updated as part of the batch file upload through the automatic renewal process.

myVRS navigator will display a notification and an error message on the current month snapshot if you attempt to confirm prior to the automatic contract-renewal process. You have the option of waiting for the automatic contract renewal process to run, or checking an acknowledgement box on the Contract Changes tab (under Employment Changes in the current month snapshot).

You may run the Unrenewed Contracts report available in the Report Repository for a listing of employees impacted. Should you choose to check the acknowledgement box and proceed with confirming the snapshot, you then must renew those individual contracts via a batch file or manual online process. The member's benefit could be impacted if the contract is not renewed on time.

Note For more information about contract renewals, refer to the Enrolling and Maintaining Contract Employees course available through the VRS Training Academy.

Employers have access to the GASB Report – Validation of Census Data in myVRS Navigator. The report contains the same information that is included in your monthly snapshot, such as enrollments and employment and salary changes. The employment information includes fields listing an employee's date of birth and gender. Data for the last 18-month period is available, and you can request a report for up to 12 months at a time. Your report, which runs overnight, becomes available the morning after you request it.

VRS recommends that you run this report monthly or quarterly to verify your data. The report is also useful for your annual audit.

After confirming your June snapshot, you can submit enrollments and maintenance changes, upload files, process prior service, generate snapshots and complete all other routine processing for July. However, you cannot confirm the July snapshot until year-end processing is complete. VRS will post a message on the myVRS Navigator dashboard alerting you to when you may confirm your July snapshot.

At the start of each new fiscal year, contract information in myVRS Navigator must be updated for all returning VRS-covered contract employees.

• Contract start date: automatically updated in myVRS Navigator.
• VRS contract period and the number of months paid: update if terms have changed.

If you have not updated your employees' contract start dates for the new fiscal year, myVRS Navigator will advance the dates automatically by one year, 10 business days after the last off-contract monthly snapshot is confirmed.

1. Open the employee's record.
2. Select the Employment tab.
3. Select the Job/Contract Change option.
4. On the Employment Maintenance screen, provide employment type, job name and start date. If the new job is a contractual position (less than 12 months), you will enter the contract start date, the contract period and the number of months paid. If the position is 12 months, then proceed to the next step.
5. Click the Save button. A dialog box will appear onscreen asking you to confirm your changes.

Batch reporters may submit contract changes through the batch file upload process. VRS will update any contract start dates not updated as part of the batch file upload through the automatic renewal process.

School division and higher education institution contacts (Snapshot Processors, Security Administrators and Employment Processors) will receive additional information on this process by email this month.

From time to time, members may have more than one person record in myVRS Navigator because a Social Security number was incorrectly keyed into the system. Two step-by-step demonstrations – Merge Person Accounts and Social Security Number Correction – will walk you through the process of merging the records with the correct Social Security number so that only one record exists. You can find these demonstrations by searching for the Enroll and Maintain Employees course in the VRS Training Academy.

You also may refer to the Enroll and Maintain Employeessection of the Employer Manual.

If an employee notifies you of a discrepancy in his or her member account, you can begin the correction process. If the two records were created by the same employer, you will be able to view both records before merging them. However, if a record was created by another employer, you will not be able to view that record until the accounts have been merged by VRS.

To ensure the defined contribution component gets corrected when merging a record for a Hybrid Retirement Plan member, complete the Request for Adjustment Review form.

If you have questions, email employer-info@varetire.org or call 1-888-827-3847.

Income over the Internal Revenue Service compensation limits included below cannot be considered part of an employee’s creditable compensation in VRS retirement plans.

You should report the employee’s actual salary. If an annual salary exceeds the 401(a)(17) compensation limit, myVRS Navigator automatically calculates creditable compensation and contributions using the limit. Do not withhold the member contribution on the excess salary from the employee. Instead, pay it to the employee as wages. VRS benefits are based on the full, uncapped annual salary.

Note Although IRS compensation limits are announced and effective for January 1, VRS applies the limit on a plan-year basis (July 1 to June 30).

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