Page 3 - Retiree News Fall 2023

New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli:
Retirement Online: The Quickest Way to Manage Your NYSLRS Business
Editor’s Note:
required making a phone call or mailing in a form to NYSLRS. You can instantly make changes to your account, avoid the delay of regular mail, and, in most cases, avoid the need for a notary. With Retirement Online, you can:
• Update contact information; • Update direct deposit
information;
• Change beneficiaries; • Change federal tax
withholding; and
• View a more detailed
pension ‘pay stub.’
In the last fiscal year
alone, retirees, members and beneficiaries completed nearly 575,000 individual transactions, and members used Retirement Online to:
• Complete 404,095 retirement benefit estimates;
• Submit 31,674 loan applications; and
• Request 3,515 new service credit purchases.
Designed for Faster Responses to You
Retirement Online was developed with only one thing in mind — to provide faster response times to you, our customer. NYSLRS is and always has been committed to quality customer service. We are, however, currently dealing with several challenges that affect our ability to respond to some of you in a timely manner.
As it did for so many organizations, the pandemic created unique issues for NYSLRS. Ours were not with our workforce or the amount of work accomplished. Rather, we had
to deal with the sheer volume
of retirements the pandemic produced. We were also dealing with an influx of high priority casework, such as, sadly, our members who were victims of COVID-19 and whose beneficiaries were entitled to death benefits.
Additionally, the number of NYSLRS participants we serve continues to grow. During just
the last year, NYSLRS added
more than 29,000 new retirees
and beneficiaries to our customer ranks. Our ability to handle the influx, make adjustments and finalize pension amounts has been hampered by this and the difficulty in hiring qualified, new staff —
the same issue currently facing businesses and organizations around the country.
Despite these challenges, NYSLRS remains hard at work. Each of your concerns is important to us and we take our mission to
The following
article was
written by New
York State
Comptroller
Thomas P.
DiNapoli to
update CSEA
Retiree and
working
members on
important New
York State and Local Retirement System information.
Using Retirement Online is the easiest and fastest way to conduct business with the New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS). You can quickly take care of many tasks that once
provide you a secure retirement seriously. The Call Center lines are fully engaged every hour of operation. And beyond that, staff works tirelessly behind the scenes to help as many customers as possible.
And remember, NYSLRS staff
is made up of hardworking CSEA members reflecting the CSEA work ethic we all know and appreciate. They are dedicated to helping you and are deeply affected when they are unable to. They are also, as you well know, the people who will get the job done, lead us out of this temporary service glitch and make your NYSLRS customer experience the very best it can be.
So, if you haven’t yet taken advantage of Retirement Online, I strongly encourage you to do so.
In many cases, you will get faster results, and our staff will be able to focus on more complex customer cases and issues.
And one more thing! We’re hiring! No one knows better than a CSEA retiree about the benefits of working for New York State. Spread the word to family and friends about the health insurance and pension
benefits
available to
those in public
service. If you
know anyone
interested,
please have
them visit
www.osc.
ny.gov/jobs.
DiNapoli
Sign up today!
The Fastest, Easiest Way
to Conduct NYSLRS Business
Visit the Retirement Online sign-up page
at www.bit.ly/ RO-sign-in
For questions, visit www.osc.ny.gov/retirement/contact-us
scan to visit
FALL 2023
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