Here's What's New!

Are you receiving checks from ASRS for Health Insurance Premium Benefits or Excess Benefits? Did you know you can receive payments five to ten days faster and more securely by taking advantage of direct deposit?

Employers are strongly encouraged to begin this process by completing the Employer/Vendor ACH Direct Deposit form and returning it via secure message (This form is available in your secure employer myASRS account on the Forms & Packets page.)

Occasionally, you will find a pending enrollment for an employee who is no longer employed by your organization. You may be wondering, “What do I do with this enrollment?” If the employee did work for you in a position that met membership criteria and contributions were reported or will be reported, please submit the enrollment. 

The Arizona State Retirement System (ASRS) provides a health insurance premium benefit to qualified retirees and employees who receive a long-term disability (LTD) income benefit. In order to ensure your retirees and LTD recipients who elect health insurance receive the correct premium benefit subsidy, the ASRS annually requests that employers provide their updated Health Insurance Plans and Premiums for the following benefit year. 

Internal Revenue Code (IRC) section 401(a)17 is a limit on compensation beyond which no further retirement contributions may be deducted from an employee’s earnable salary for a given year. This limit applies to all ASRS members, but the actual maximum differs depending on the member’s enrollment date.

As many of our members are school staff and work less than 12 months a year, the question of how working extra over the summer affects your future pension is a common one.

First, a quick note about how non-12-month school staff earn service credit. Because of the shortened work year, these ASRS members earn more service per month (.111 credit per month) than a traditional 12-month employee (.083 credit per month). This is to make sure that non-12-month members earn a full year’s worth of service between the start and end of their school year. 

Do you have an employee who you submitted a long term disability (LTD) claim packet for, or an employee that is currently on LTD? If you answered yes to either of these questions, please note the following:

The Employer Administrator is responsible for authorizing access to the applications available on the ASRS secure employer website for registered employer users.

Each employer must certify the amount of member and employer contributions on each payroll and submit that amount to the ASRS on a due date prescribed by the ASRS Board of Trustees. (A.R.S. § 38-735)