The Wisconsin Retirement System Annual Statement of Benefits (dated January 1, 2021) will soon be delivered to active employees with WRS contribution balances as of December 31, 2020.
Note: All active employees will receive their statement in the mail. The employer will be responsible for the cost of return postage for incorrect member addresses.
Employees Should Carefully Review Statements
The annual Statement of Benefits provides WRS participants the opportunity to review important WRS account information that will eventually be used in benefit calculations. Therefore, we ask that you encourage employees to carefully review their statements and the supporting Explanation of Annual Statement of Benefits (ET-7333), available on the ETF website. Employers are required to provide their employees this link, and a printed copy of this explanation as requested.
Your employees should contact you for clarification of the WRS information that you have reported to ETF: employment category, earnings, and hours worked (ETF converted the hours worked to WRS-creditable service). It is critical that you immediately correct any reporting errors. Please refer to Chapter 11 of the WRS Administration Manual (ET-1127) for instructions and guidance on making prior year account adjustments.
Please notify your employees that after terminating all WRS-covered employment, they must notify ETF of any address changes so they will continue to receive their annual Statement of Benefits (until a benefit is taken) and other communications from ETF.
Statement Web Pages
The Statement of Benefits set of web pages is at etf.wi.gov/members/statement
Please share this web address with your employees, in addition to the explanation. These web pages offer easy access to related documents, including the statement explanations, as well as additional information:
How to Read Your Statement of Benefits
See our "How to Read Your Statement of Benefits - Active Employee" page or "How to Read Your Statement of Benefits - Alternate Payee" page for more information. Please be sure your employees know they are active employees.
Special Note for Employers of Protective Category Employees
For protective categories under the WRS, employers have a higher employer-required contribution rate than the employee-required rate. ETF holds these excess contributions in the employer reserve to fund the actuarially determined benefit cost associated with the protective categories higher formula benefit and lower minimum retirement age. The Annual Statement of Benefits lists the money purchase balance of the member’s account. The money purchase balance consists of the employee-required contributions plus a matching employer-required contribution. The excess employer-required contributions that an employer pays above the employee-required rate do not appear on the Annual Statement of Benefits.
Questions
Employees and employers with questions after reviewing the information supplied with the Statement of Benefits may contact ETF at 1-877-533-5020.