Watch for Restated Retirement Plan Summary Plan Descriptions

The final step of the Retirement Security (RS) Plan and 401(k) Pension Plan restatement process is to distribute your cooperative’s restated summary plan descriptions (SPDs) to plan participants.

Starting Friday, January 6, restated SPDs (effective July 1, 2022) for the RS Plan and 401(k) Plan will begin to be released to the Retirement Plan Documents page of the Employee Benefits website. You will receive one or more Message Center notification(s) linking to the SPDs as your SPDs become available. Documents for all plans are expected to be released by January 16, 2023.

Once you receive the notification, download your SPDs and give them employees who currently participate in the RS and 401(k) Plans as soon as possible, but no later than July 29, 2023. Give the most current SPDs to newly hired employees as those employees become eligible for plan participation. Follow the BA Guide instructions for distributing plan documents. Consult the Retirement Plan Restatements page for details about the recently completed restatement process, including SPD distribution deadlines.

You must also fill out the online distribution acknowledgement form after giving the SPDs to your employees. Use the link in the “Documents Requiring Acknowledgement” subsection of the Retirement Plan Documents page of the BA Guide. You can acknowledge distributing more than one SPD in the same step, provided the SPDs share the same distribution date.

If you made additional plan provision changes that were effective (in 2022 after the July 1 restatement), SPDs for those change(s) will be released by February 15. 

If you have questions about the restatements or about distributing retirement SPDs that are not answered by these online instructions, contact the retirement compliance team at 866.673.2299, option 7, or pension.compliance@nreca.coop.