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NCPERS 2024 Legislative Conference: Recap
Public pension trustees, staff, and stakeholders gathered in Washington, DC during NCPERS Legislative Conference to learn about the key policy developments impacting the industry and to meet with policymakers.
By: Lizzy Lees, Director of Communications, NCPERSMore than 125 public pension trustees, staff, and industry stakeholders attended NCPERS 2024 Legislative Conference on January 22-24. Attendees learned about the key policy developments that may impact the industry in the coming year before heading to the Hill to meet with policymakers.
Jonathan Capehart, Associate Editor for the Washington Post, and Matt Lewis, Senior Columnist for The Daily Beast, shared their perspectives as Washington Insiders on the 2024 presidential, congressional, and state elections—and what may be at stake.
With the recent high-profile data breaches, there's been renewed interest among public plans to find alternatives to verify participant deaths that are reliable and limit plan data exposures. Tony Roda, Williams & Jensen; Caprice Edwards, National Association for Public Health Statistics and Information Systems (NAPHSIS); and Hank Kim, NCPERS shared insights into potential alternatives like the Social Security Administration's “full” master death files, U.S. Treasury's Do Not Pay system, and NAPHSIS Electronic Verification of Vital Events (EVVE) software.
Cristina Begoña Martin Firvida, director at the Securities and Exchange Commission, discussed the Office of the Investor Advocate's priorities for the coming year. As institutional investors, public pensions have great interest in what this office does as it analyzes the potential impact on investors of proposed regulatory changes, identifies problems that investors have with investment products and financial service providers, and recommends changes to statutes and regulations for the benefit of investors.
Tony Roda, Williams & Jensen, shared insights into the legislative and regulatory issues NCPERS is prioritizing in 2024.
NCPERS presented The Honorable Michael Frerichs, Illinois State Treasurer, with its 2023 Policymaker of the Year Award. The award recognizes the efforts of a policymaker who has had a positive impact on public pensions or whose efforts have contributed to improvements in retirement security more broadly. “The Honorable Michael Frerichs is proof of the profound impact that policymakers can have on retirement security. NCPERS believes that all Americans deserve to retire with dignity, and we are pleased to recognize him as our 2023 Policymaker of the Year for his efforts in both the private and public sector,” said NCPERS Executive Director and Counsel, Hank Kim.
Frerichs then moderated a conversation with David Teykaerts, CalSavers; Christine Cheng, Illinois Secure Choice; and Peter Thompson, RetirePath Virginia. Panelists provided an update on three state-sponsored retirement savings programs for the private sector and offered outlooks on the future of this sector.
Greg LeRoy, Good Jobs First; Arlene Martinez, Good Jobs First; and Samantha Waxman, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities then discussed state tax policies and their impact on the ability of states to appropriate money to fund their priorities, including fully paying the actuarially determined employer contributions (ADECs).
Closing out the first day of programming, Kendal Killian, executive director of the National Public Pension Coalition (NPPC), provided an overview of proposals in state capitals that impact public pensions.
Attendees went to the Hill for Policy Day, where they met with elected officials to share information about their retirement systems, discuss their priorities, and build valuable connections.
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