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May 17, 2004 - 13492 subscribers
Today's sponsor: Financial Research Associates, LLC

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STARS & STRIPES ’04 Summit
The 2004 National Public Employees’ Retirement Funds Summit
July 18-20, 2004 * Disney’s Yacht & Beach Club, Orlando, FL
To register call 800-280-8440 or visit www.frallc.com
General Highlights:
* A Closed-Door/Private Public Fund Exchange
* Enhanced Asset Allocation & Diversification in Today’s Economy
* Effectively Valuing A Fund’s Liabilities
* Managing a Mature Fund Versus a New Plan
* Corporate Governance, Late Trading, & Market-Timing Scandals

(Please visit our sponsors. We try to make sure their products and services will be of interest to you. Thanks! --Editor)
Voters Release Houston From Pension Law
Excerpt: "Houston residents voted decisively on Saturday to exempt their city's pension plan from a state requirement that pension promises be kept." (New York Times; one-time registration required)

Houston Voters Approve Proposition Allowing Mayor More Flexibility in Dealing with Pension Benefits
Excerpt: "Houston voters approved Proposition 1 by 72 percent to 28 percent. Only 8.5 percent of registered voters went to the polls." (Houston Chronicle)

Senate Finance Releases NESTEG Summary, Report
Excerpt: "The SFC approved the measure on September 17.... It is unclear when further action will be taken on the bill. SFC spokesperson Jill Gerber told CCH on May 14 that staff turnover and the subject's complexity delayed release of the documents until now." (CCH News & Information Library)

Text: Unofficial Version of Senate Finance Committee's Summary of the NESTEG Bill (PDF)
10 pages. Excerpt: "Summary of S. _____ National Employee Savings and Trust Equity Guarantee Act (NESTEG)" (U.S. Senate Committee on Finance)

Text: Language of NESTEG Bill from Senate Finance Committee (PDF)
287 pages. (U.S. Senate Committee on Finance)

Text: Unofficial Version of Senate Finance Committee's Description of the NESTEG Bill (PDF)
174 pages. Excerpt: "The Committee on Finance, having considered an original bill (S. ____) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to protect the retirement security of American workers by ensuring that pension assets are adequately diversified and by providing workers with adequate access to, and information about, their pension plans, and for other purposes, reports favorably thereon and recommends that the bill do pass." (U.S. Senate Committee on Finance)

Plan Design and 401(k) Savings Outcomes
Working paper. Excerpt: "We assess the impact of 401(k) plan design on four different 401(k) savings outcomes: participation in the 401(k) plan, the distribution of employee contribution rates, asset allocation, and cash distributions. We show that plan design can have an important effect on all of these savings outcomes." (National Bureau of Economic Research)

Text: Spring 2004 Issue of 'Retirement News for Employers' (Premiere Issue) (PDF)
9 pages. Excerpt: "In this brand-new quarterly publication we'll deliver retirement plan information geared for you, the business owner. We aim to bring you timely and relevant information about all things retirement-related. We'll cover the practical effects of new tax laws and recent guidance. By 'practical,' we mean: What does this do for my business and me? How do I account for this in my plan? Do I have to make changes to my plan because of this?" (Internal Revenue Service)

Milwaukee Pension Officials Fined For Perks
Excerpt: "All eight defendants in the Milwaukee County Pension Board gifts investigation will pay civil forfeitures for accepting perks from investment advisers to the $1.5 billion county-employee pension fund, officials disclosed Friday." (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

300 in Hawaii State Government Get Jobs Plus Pensions
Excerpt: "Each rehired retiree works for 89 days, takes a one-day break in service, then returns for 89 more days of investigating. State law says that a retiree who comes back on the public payroll for 90 days or more can no longer collect pension benefits. So every four months or so, the employees are dropped from the payroll, then return a day later, pensions intact." (Honolulu Advertiser)

Overview: New FASB Rules Focus on DB Plan Investments
Excerpt: "The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) recently issued FASB Statement No. 132 (revised 2003), Employers' Disclosures about Pensions and other Post-retirement Benefits, which requires companies to disclose additional information regarding their defined benefit plans. This new ruling came as result of recent complaints by the users of financial statements that current disclosure information was insufficient for their needs." (BenefitNews.com)

Negro League Players To Get Pension From Major League Baseball
Excerpt: "Major League Baseball will create a fund to pay pensions to 27 former Negro Leaguers who played after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. The players will have the option of receiving $833.33 a month for four years - for a total of $40,000 - or $375 a month for life." (New York Daily News via the Tallahassee Democrat)

Dealing with Volatility in the Stock Market
Excerpt: "The old advice is still sound -- diversification is the flotation device that saves you in a stock market crash and an anchor that grounds a portfolio during waves of irrational market exuberance." (Houston Chronicle)

United Way Exec Sentenced to Prison Term for Pension Fund Theft
Excerpt: "A former top executive of the United Way of the National Capital Area was sentenced Friday to 27 months in prison for stealing from the charity. Oral O. Suer, 69, pleaded guilty in March to improperly receiving nearly $500,000 from the charity and its pension fund." (AP via Washington Post; one-time registration required)

Social Security and the Evolution of Elderly Poverty
Working paper. Excerpt: "Our findings suggest that over all elderly families the elasticity of poverty to benefits is roughly unitary. This suggests that reductions in Social Security benefits would significantly alter the poverty of the elderly." (National Bureau of Economic Research)

Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General

Senate Export Subsidy Repeal Bill Would Restrict Tax Advantages of Nonqualified Deferred Comp Plans
Excerpt: "Legislation passed by the Senate to repeal export tax subsidies that have been ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization would reportedly place distribution and investment restrictions on nonqualified deferred compensation plans and prohibit the deferral of gain from the exercise of stock options under deferred compensation arrangements." (CCH News & Information Library)

Bookmark: Employee Benefits Research Guide
Excerpt: "This guide is intended as a starting point for research in the law of employee benefit plans (including welfare benefit plans, such as medical plans and cafeteria plans, and pension plans) at Georgetown Law Library. It includes both primary and secondary materials, in both print and electronic formats." (E. B. Williams Library, Georgetown University)

Corporate Tax Avoidance and High Powered Incentives
Excerpt: "We find that, for the full sample of firms, increases in incentive compensation tend to reduce the level of tax sheltering, suggesting a complementary relationship between diversion and sheltering. As predicted by the model, the relationship between incentive compensation and tax sheltering is a function of a firm's corporate governance." (National Bureau of Economic Research)

Are Perks Purely Managerial Excess?
Working paper. Excerpt: "We ... find evidence that perks are offered most in situations where they are likely to enhance managerial productivity. This suggests that a view of perks that sees them purely as managerial excess is incorrect." (National Bureau of Economic Research)

Same-Sex Marriage In Massachusetts May Require Administrative and Policy Changes (PDF)
4 pages. Excerpt: "The immediate concern for employers is to identify those changes they must implement in order to handle same-sex marriages of their Massachusetts employees. These changes may involve payroll and other human resource information systems (HRIS) and human resource policies." (Mellon's Human Resources & Investor Solutions)

G.ay Spouses Face Maze to Get New Benefits
Excerpt: "On Monday, Massachusetts is expected to become the first U.S. state to sanction full marriage for g.ays and les.bians and human resource executives and lawyers are bracing for a slew of questions from happy same-sex newlyweds about their rights." (Reuters via Washington Post; one-time registration required)

G.ay Couples Apply for Marriage Licenses in Massachusetts
Excerpt: "Against a backdrop of whoops and cheers and a party that spilled onto the streets, g.ay and les.bian couples here began filling out applications for marriage licenses at 12:01 a.m. on Monday, when Massachusetts became the first state in the country to allow them to marry." (New York Times; one-time registration required)

Samuel Iwry Dies at 93; Father of J. Mark Iwry
We extend our deepest sympathies to the family of Mr. Iwry. Excerpt: "Samuel Iwry, 93, a scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls whose life story could rival the plot of an international adventure novel, died of a stroke May 8 ... Survivors include his wife of 58 years, Nina Rochman Iwry, of Baltimore; a son, J. Mark Iwry of Bethesda; and a grandson.' Mark is a former IRS pension official, now with the Brookings Institution: https://benefitslink.com/links/20030116-020318.html (Washington Post; one-time registration required)

The Actuarial Game of Baseball: 'Stat of the Art' (PDF)
Excerpt: "When Billy Beane became general manager of the Oakland A's in 1997, he set about turning conventional baseball wisdom on its ear. With the second lowest payroll in the major leagues, he put together a team of undervalued rejects who came close to breaking the American League record for consecutive wins in 2002. He did it not with advance scouting reports or hunches or gut feelings ... He did it the way any actuary would. With numbers." (Contingencies Magazine)

Newly Posted Events

IFRS 2 Share-Based Payment - An Overview Of The New Standard
Nationwide on May 14, 2004
presented by Ernst & Young, LLP

Required Disclosure of Relative Values of Survivor-Annuity and Proposed Section 411(d)(6) Regulations
in New York on May 20, 2004
presented by WEB (Worldwide Employee Benefits Network) New York Chapter

The Boot Camp on 412i Plans
Nationwide on July 29, 2004
presented by The 412(i) Company

US Health Savings Accounts - What You Need To Know
in California on May 14, 2004
presented by Mercer Human Resource Consulting

Newly Posted Press Releases

NCPERS Briefs Congressional Staff on EEOC Rule on Retiree Health Benefits
(National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems)

Percentage Of Active Workers In Defined Benefit System Continues To Decline, According To New PBGC Pension Insurance Data Book
(Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC))

IRS Offers Small Businesses New Tools To Help Manage Retirement Plans
(Internal Revenue Service (IRS))

H.R. 4279 Will Combat Rising Health Costs, Encourage Greater Retirement Saving
(American Benefits Council)

ACLI Opposes SEC Initiative on Mandatory Redemption Fees in Mutual Funds
(American Council of Life Insurers)

Treasury Secretary Snow Hails Passage Of Health Care Initiatives That Address Affordability And Help Uninsured
(U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Public Affairs, Washington, D.C.)

Statement of U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao On U.S. House Passage of Small-Business Health Plans
(U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Public Affairs, Washington, D.C.)

American Express Retirement Services Large Market Client Base Now 100 Percent On BlueStar® Platform Client Migrations Completed Using Patent Pending, Intra-day Conversions, Legacy System Decommissioned
(American Express Retirement Services)

Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
Post a Help Wanted Ad

Manager of Benefits
for Diversified Entertainment Company In New York City
in NY

Pension Installation Project Manager-CCI
for Transamerica
in CA

Sr. Manager, Account Management
for CitiStreet
in NJ

ERISA & Compliance Consultant
for Gallagher Benefit Services, Inc.
in MA

ERISA Associate
for Trucker Huss, APC
in CA

Employee Benefits Assistant
for Trucker Huss, APC
in CA

System Benefits Manager
for Providence Health System
in WA

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