Employer Requirements and Information

All employees who have been in your employment for five (5) years or less AND initially declined participating in the MainePERS PLD Consolidated Plan. 

Prior to September 1, 2023, employers must notify their employees who have been employed for no more than 5 years AND who initially declined participating in the PLD Plan about the open enrollment period.

1. Employers need to provide these employees with a  Limited Period Open Enrollment Application for Membership. This form must be completed by all employees eligible for the open enrollment and requires them to indicate if they wish to participate in the PLD Plan or continue to decline participation. The Limited Period Open Enrollment Application for Membership must be completed by your eligible employees and returned to you no later than November 1, 2023.
   
2. You then need to report your employees’ elections to us by submitting electronic Limited Period Open Enrollment Applications via Employer Self Service by no later than November 30, 2023. You must submit an Application for each eligible employee regardless of whether the employee is opting to join or is declining.

Available for download:

• Sample notice to send to your eligible employees.
• Limited Period Open Enrollment Application for Membership form to provide to employees for completion. This form can also be accessed from Employer Self-Service

Additionally, please encourage your non-participating, MainePERS eligible employees to attend one of our Zoom information sessions listed below. These sessions will be held on August 22 at 9:00 a.m., September 21 at 9:00 a.m. and October 12 at 2:00 p.m. Your employees can register online using the Event Registration Links available at the PLD Open Enrollment Sessions page.

Important Information

• For some of your employees this will be their last opportunity to join MainePERS as an employee of your District. This is because they will have been employed by you for more than 5 years before the start of next year’s open enrollment on September 1, 2024. Only employees five or less years of employment as of the start of open enrollment on September 1st have the opportunity to join.
  
• If an employee elects to join MainePERS at any point during open enrollment, they must always participate with MainePERS whenever employed by you now or in the future. This means they cannot stop contributing to MainePERS while employed by you for any reason.
  
• Employees who elect to join under this provision cannot purchase credit with MainePERS for the period that they declined to participate. This means that any employee who joins MainePERS will have prospective membership only.
  
• The retirement contributions of employees who elect to join under this provision will be subject to federal income tax. This means their retirement contributions will not reduce their federally taxable income while they are working but will reduce the amount of their retirement benefit that is subject to federal income tax when they retire. This is different than it is for employees who elect to join MainePERS when first hired/eligible.

1. Form CL-0102A Limited Period Open Enrollment Application for Membership, must be used for these employees’ elections to join or not to join MainePERS under this provision. Please submit this form to us electronically via Employer Self Service (ESS) starting no earlier than September 1, 2023 and no later than November 30, 2023. PLEASE DO NOT use the regular Application for Membership for employees joining or declining under this provision.
   
   This form may be downloaded and printed from ESS to aid in your collection and recording the elections of your employees. However, please DO NOT submit the paper versions of these forms to us. Original, signed election forms should be kept in your employees’ personnel records.  You should then report their election to us by your electronic submission of the Limited Period Open Enrollment Application for Membership via ESS.  This functionality will be available in ESS starting September 1, 2023 and will end on November 30, 2023. For technical questions on completing the form in ESS, please contact your MainePERS Employer Reporting associate.

• Every eligible employee must complete an Application at every enrollment opportunity until they are no longer eligible to make an election. You must complete the Application in full and submit it to us electronically regardless of whether the employee elects to join or decline as we need all of the information to record the election in our system.

• The Original Hire/First Eligibility Date is the first date the employee was hired into a MainePERS eligible position.

• The Membership Start/Participation Begin Date for employees electing to join during open enrollment will be the first date of the pay period immediately following the date they submit their Limited Period Open Enrollment Application for Membership to you as long as that date is in no instance earlier than September 1, 2023, or later than the first date of the pay period that is on/immediately after November 1, 2023.

• You will use the same position class, plan class and personnel status codes as you would for all other participating employees; and the employee and employer contribution rates for that plan remain the same as they are for your participating employees. However, you will enter a different Rate Schedule Number to designate the contributions as being after-tax. See Section 3 for information on the new rate schedule numbers.

• Indicate which open enrollment period applies to the employee by placing a check in the appropriate box b. through f. in the Employer Section of the form as follows:
  
  Check b. if the employee is between their date of hire and their first employment  anniversary (i.e. within the first 12 months of employment)
  
  Check c. if the employee is between their first employment anniversary and their second employment anniversary (i.e. between 12 and 24 months of employment)
  
  Check d. if the employee is between their second employment anniversary and their third employment anniversary (i.e. between 24 and 36 months of employment)
  
  Check e. if the employee is between their third employment anniversary and their fourth employment anniversary (i.e. between 36 and 48 months of employment)
  
  Check f. if the employee is between their fourth employment anniversary and their fifth employment anniversary (i.e. between 48 and 60 months of employment)

2. Employees who elect to join should also complete a Pension Beneficiary Designation for Pre-Retirement Death Benefits form. These can be completed and signed electronically and submitted to us via DocuSign from our website. Download and review CL-0722A Information Regarding Pension Beneficiary Designation for Pre-Retirement Death Benefits , then Download DocuSign Form CL-0722.  Of course, these can be printed, completed and mailed to us physically as well.
   
3. On the Membership Start Date/Participation Begin Date, begin deducting MainePERS retirement contributions from your employee’s earnings and reporting them to us on your payroll report using the applicable plan code and the one of the following Rate Categories and Rate Schedule Numbers. While you will still determine the amount of contributions due by applying the contribution rate to your employee’s gross earnable compensation – the retirement contributions will be subject to federal and state income tax. 
   
   For Regular Plans, these are based on the first date the individual participated in our PLD Consolidated Plan with any PLD employer.  For Special Plans, you will use the Rate Categories and Rate Schedule Numbers associated with the Regular Plan Normal Retirement Age 60.  If you are not sure if your regular plan employee contributed to MainePERS before with another PLD employer, call Retirement Services at 1-800-451-9800 and ask us to look it up for you.

Regular Plan individual first participated in the PLD Consolidated Plan before July 1, 2014 OR individual is participating in any of our Special Plans:

Regular Plan individual first participated in the PLD Consolidated Plan on/after July 1, 2014:

PTX and PTX1 should be used when the employee is paying their own contributions.

PTXEP and PTXEP1 should be used if the employer is paying all or some of the employee’s contributions for them.

For assistance with selecting the appropriate rate category and/or rate schedule number, please contact your MainePERS Employer Reporting associate.