What is Pension Focus? It was formed in 1996 as a 501(c)3 public benefit corporation to educate plan sponsors and fiduciaries on how to administer or oversee a retirement plan. (The conference is) five hours of class time, and it’s continuing education for all kinds of professionals – human resources, certified public accountants and attorneys. The last few years, attendance has been right around 100, and this year, we think we’ll have probably a 10 percent increase this year. We have people attend, probably, from 10 or 11 states.
What’s the target audience for Pension Focus? The people who are employed by a plan sponsor – the employer – and are in charge of running the plan for the employer. It might be the human resources staff, or if it’s a large enough company, it might be the employee benefits staff. It’s for the people on the ground who have to do the heavy lifting every day (and) for the people in charge of making decisions … the CEO, the (chief financial officer), the director of HR.
What kinds of speakers do you bring in, and who’s on tap for this year? We have two broad types of speakers: regulators, who are Internal Revenue Service and Department of Labor officials, and private practice speakers. We had Carol Gold, the director of employee plans for the IRS, a few years ago. She’s since retired, but we’ve also had her top two deputies. (This year), we have Brian Graff, the executive director of the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries. … There is not one piece of legislation that comes before the Senate or the House, or one piece of regulation that will come before the IRS or the Department of Labor, that he will not be influential for the outcome. He’s the former legislative counsel to the U.S. Congress Joint Committee on Taxation and is an attorney and CPA. Jim Paulsen is on CNBC fairly often and is a nationally recognized economist and the chief investment strategist for Wells Capital Management. We had him speak for the first time last year.
What are some topics that will be addressed? Graff is going to provide a legislative update – what do we think is going to be coming down the pike as far as new legislation and regulation. But most of his time is going to be spent talking about regulations that passed in the last 12 months to 18 months. Those have to do with fees, because what the Department of Labor is trying to do is provide transparency on fees to all involved parties. … Companies must find out what fees are being paid out of the plan. … He’s going to spend much of his time talking about those rules and what plan sponsors and fiduciaries have to do in order to comply.
What issues do you expect will be top-of-mind for conference attendees? First is complying with the disclosure rules on fees. But the other thing that … is becoming en vogue again is the concept of retirement readiness. There’s been a lot of debate amid financial fallout of governments being able to afford defined-benefit pensions plans. Twenty years ago, private industry faced the same dilemma … and the private marketplace pretty much converted to defined-contribution, 401(k) type plans. … The down side is that (defined-contribution plans) put more responsibility on the individual employee participants for planning for their own retirements. And guess what? A lot of them either do not have the inclination or the discipline to plan or prepare for their retirements. Dennis Ackley will give a breakfast presentation about retirement readiness. I think it’ll be a popular subject. How can we as an industry bring more attention to the fact that people need to take personal responsibility for preparing for retirement? Their retirement plan is just a tool for them to do that. Ackley’s presentation will primarily focus on what (attendees) can do to get their employees ready to retire.[[In-content Ad]]
