My employer is a Public Transit Authority in the State of Washington. It claims to be exempt from the provisions of ERISA which specifically gives it the right to exclude certain individuals from participation in its retirement plan. Our current retirement plan is a 401(a) with mandatory employee and employer contributions. The state of Washington has a public employeees retirement system which my employer chooses not to participate in. Our retirement plan is collectivly bargained every three years.

I understand that ERISA exempts govermental agencies who have a govermental retirement plan from the provisions of ERISA. However,

I question if my employer is actually participating in a govermental retirement plan when it elected not to participate in the state public employees retirement system.

So my question is: Is my employer exempt from ERISA, and can it exclude from participation in the retirement plan employees that ERISA says must be allowed participation?

This is important to about thirty of us. Thanks for your help.

Here goes a test of the misc. benefits section!

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I'm working with a client to evaluate the possibility of instituting a PTO plan in lieu of a traditional time off plan with vacation, sick, etc.

In researching comparative data on this subject, it appears that many of the Silicon Valley companies perhaps do not include sick leave as part of a formal PTO program, but handle one-at-a-time sick days informally without tracking.

Has anyone heard of this? Comments on successful implementation of a PTO plan?

Thanks...