Posted:
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
Retirement. One word with a seemingly infinite number of connotations. Whether this is your first year of service or your last, it's time to take a closer look at the money you are entitled to at the conclusion of your career in education. Like everything else in the world of education, an acronym comes into play - NYSTRS.
What is NYSTRS? Simple answer: The New York State Teachers' Retirement System (NYSTRS) was established in 1921 by an act of the state legislature and is the second-largest of eight public retirement systems in New York State, and one of the most stable pension systems in the entire country. NYSTRS administers the fund from which public school teachers and administrators employed outside New York City receive retirement and ancillary benefits. One of the most poorly understood facts pertains to the source of the over 110 billion dollars in our retirement fund. Some think the funding comes from tax payers. While the tax payers do account for about 7% of the funding over the long haul, most of the pension's money - approximately 85% - comes from investments. The rest of the money comes from educators who must pay into the system at some point during their career. The enormous financial gains made by the investments of the pension system is one of the main reasons why pensions are better than a traditional 403 B or 401K plan in which you invest on your own.
Back to the importance at hand. Over two thirds of NYSUT members do not have an online account setup for their pensions. You read that correctly; over 66% of NYSUT members do not have an online account setup to monitor their pensions. We need to change that statistic for our brothers and sisters in Plainedge. Again, whether it's your first year of service or you're nearing the end of your career, it's imperative to, at the very least, setup your online NYSTRS account that hosts hundreds of thousands of your hard earned dollars.
Once you setup an online account, you can:
- Calculate pension and loan estimates.
- Apply for service retirement.
- Track the processing of your retirement application.
- Apply for a loan.
- See salary, service, contribution, benefit payment and beneficiary information.
- Calculate pension and loan estimates.
- Apply for service retirement.
- Track the processing of your retirement application.
- Apply for a loan.
- See salary, service, contribution, benefit payment and beneficiary information.
Visit the NYSTRS website today. https://www.nystrs.org/ Setup an account if you don't have one. Simply click on the "MyNYSTRS Login" on the top of the page. You will need your EmplID*. See below and, as always, if you have any questions, just ask any of your PFT representatives.
*Your EmplID (short for Employee Identification number) is a seven digit NYSTRS-specific number. Please refer to your Benefit Profile or Retired Member Profile, or other correspondence from NYSTRS, to find your EmplID. If you cannot locate your EmplID, please be aware that for security purposes, their staff will not be able to provide it over the phone or through email. However, if you contact them at (800) 348-7298, Ext. 6250, they can mail your EmplID to the home address you have on file.
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