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If you log in to your SDCERS Member Portal account, you may notice it looks a little different – don’t worry, you’re not being tricked or phished! SDCERS’ IT and Member Services staff have been working diligently over the last few months to perform an upgrade of SDCERS’ internal systems and the Member Portal. Part of this upgrade included a slightly different look for the Portal:
However, all of the same functions are available. Active members can still monitor their contribution account, run different retirement scenarios with the benefit estimate calculator, add and remove beneficiaries, apply for retirement, and more. Retirees can still access 1099’s and pay statements, as well as make updates to their tax withholding preferences, beneficiary designations, direct deposit, and contact information.
If you are perusing your account and come across any issues or have any questions about what you see, please don’t hesitate to send us a message about it via our Contact Us page, or call us at (619) 525-3600 on regular business days from 9:00 a.m. – noon and 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. (PST).
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If you have not already done so, please register your account on the secure SDCERS Member Portal! This message is for all SDCERS Members, but particularly for City employees affected by Proposition B, who joined the system as of July 9, 2022 and are now able to register.
Please note that non-retired members will need to know the exact amount of your last SDCERS member contribution in order to complete registration – you can find this amount on your most recent paycheck, under “Pre-Tax Deductions.” Members who are actively participating in DROP will need to know the amount of their last DROP contribution, and retired members will need to know the exact amount of their last pension payment.
Also, we recommend you use a personal email address for registration, rather than your work email address – this is because you will lose access to your work email address when you terminate employment with your plan sponsor and/or retire, but you will still need access to your Member Portal account.
Member Portal Highlights
Here are the most important aspects of your Member Portal as an active Member:Update Beneficiary Designations – please do this immediately! In the event of your untimely death, SDCERS needs to know to whom you would like us to pay your applicable death benefits. You can name multiple beneficiaries, as well as primary and alternate beneficiaries, and you can add or remove beneficiaries at any time via your Member Portal account. Please review our Death Benefits Fact Sheet for more information.Reciprocity Request – if you would have been able to establish reciprocity when you were initially hired by the City, had you immediately began participating in SDCERS, you can now begin the process to establish reciprocity via your Member Portal. Once reciprocity has been accepted or denied, you will receive a letter stating the outcome – please note that the process to establish reciprocity may take several months. You can review our Reciprocity & Blended Benefits Fact Sheet for more information.Benefit Estimate Calculator – a very important tool in retirement planning, you can use this calculator to input hypothetical retirement scenarios and get an idea of what your future pension benefit might look like under different sets of circumstances. Please take a look at our Benefit Estimate Calculator Fact Sheet for guidance when generating an estimate.Monitor Your Individual SDCERS Contribution Account – if you are a Prop B employee, your SPSP-H funds were transferred to your SDCERS account several weeks ago. You can view your SDCERS contribution account via the Portal and watch it grow as you continue to add contributions and as interest accrues every July 1st.Submit Purchase of Service Credit Requests – you may be eligible to purchase certain periods of time where you were not contributing to SDCERS. You can submit a Service Purchase Request via your Member Portal and SDCERS will send you a list of all (if any) periods of time you are eligible to purchase, as well as how much each period of time costs. Please review our Purchase of Service Credit Fact Sheet for more information.Apply for Retirement – when you are within six months of being both age and service eligible to retire, you will begin the retirement process by submitting an online application in your Member Portal.If you have any questions or encounter a problem when trying to register, please contact SDCERS at (619) 525-3600, open on regular business days from 9:00 a.m. to noon and 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Alternatively, you can send us an electronic message via our Contact Us page.
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When was the last time you thought about your SDCERS beneficiary designations? Over a year ago? Five years? The day you enrolled in SDCERS? Maybe never? Beneficiary designations may seem like a chore you can put off or do once and forget about, but the truth is you should review your beneficiary designations at least once a year to make sure they reflect your current circumstances. For example, beneficiary designations probably aren’t the first thing on your mind when you get married or divorced, have a child, or lose a loved one, but these are all defining life events that may affect who you want to receive your pension benefits when you die.
Active Members (meaning those who are actively employed by the City, Port,* or Airport and contributing to SDCERS, but are not in DROP) are eligible to leave one of three types of death benefits if they die before retiring or entering DROP, and the eligibility requirements are very specific for two of the three types. Importantly, if you die without having designated your surviving spouse as your sole primary beneficiary, then your surviving spouse will not be eligible to receive the lifetime Death While Eligible or Industrial Death Benefit, even if all other eligibility requirements are satisfied. Below is a summary of the death benefits provided to Active Members, but please review the Death Benefits Fact Sheet for more in-depth information.
*General Port employees hired or rehired on or after January 1, 2009 must complete five consecutive years of Port employment after each hire or rehire date before they become Members of SDCERS and are eligible to leave a death benefit.Active Death Benefit – Paid upon the death of a Member who is not yet eligible to retire and whose death is not related to work (or in the event all pre-requisites for the Death While Eligible or Industrial Death Benefit are not satisfied).Death While Eligible Benefit – Paid upon the death of a Member who is already eligible to retire when they die and whose death is not related to work.Industrial Death Benefit – Paid upon the death of a Member whose death is due to work-related causes, as determined by the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board.(Please review the full article and/or the Death Benefits Fact Sheet for more information about these death benefits.)
As you can imagine, it may take a while to sort out who gets what if you die without updating your beneficiary designations. Luckily, designating a beneficiary is quick, easy, and you can do it from home by logging in to your SDCERS Member Portal account and clicking “Beneficiary Information” from the left menu.
You will be able to name beneficiaries to receive different types of death benefits depending on if you are active, in DROP, or retired. You can designate both a primary and an alternate beneficiary. When you die, your primary beneficiary is first in line to collect the death benefit, while your alternate receives the benefit only if the primary is already deceased. For most death benefits, you can name multiple beneficiaries and designate a specific percentage of the benefit to each person. If you choose to do this, make sure your percentages add up to 100%. Lastly, you may also designate a trust to receive any death benefit that is not a continuance or an annuity. However, you will be required to provide SDCERS with a copy of the trust or certificate of trust.
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IRS Form 1099-R’s were mailed on January 15th. All SDCERS retirees and beneficiaries who received a payment from SDCERS in 2020 should have received their 2020 1099-R forms via U.S. mail by now. You can also access your tax forms online by logging into your Member Portal account, clicking on “Tax Reporting” on the left, and selecting “2020 1099R,” which will allow you to download an electronic copy. You can also update your tax withholding preferences on your Member Portal by clicking on “Tax Withholding.” This guide explains how to update your tax withholding preferences.
For a detailed explanation of the pertinent information in your 1099-R, as well as answers to frequently asked questions regarding this tax form, please review our 1099-R Fact Sheet. If you have additional questions, please contact the Call Center at (619) 525-3600 or submit your questions electronically via our Contact Us web form.
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IRS Form 1099-R’s were mailed on January 15th. This means all SDCERS retirees and beneficiaries who received a payment from SDCERS in 2020 should be receiving their 2020 1099-R forms via U.S. mail over the next couple of weeks. To access your 1099-R form sooner, please log in to your Member Portal account, click on “Tax Reporting” on the left, and select “2020 1099R” to download an electronic copy. You can also update your tax withholding preferences on your Member Portal by clicking on “Tax Withholding.” This guide explains how to update your tax withholding preferences.
For a detailed explanation of the pertinent information in your 1099-R, as well as answers to frequently asked questions regarding this tax form, please review our 1099-R Fact Sheet. If you have additional questions, please contact the Call Center at (619) 525-3600 or submit your questions electronically via our Contact Us web form.
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When was the last time you thought about your SDCERS beneficiary designations? Over a year ago? Five years? The day you retired or entered DROP? Maybe never? Beneficiary designations may seem like a chore you can put off or do once and forget about, but the truth is you should review your beneficiary designations at least once a year to make sure they reflect your current circumstances. For example, beneficiary designations probably aren’t the first thing on your mind when you get married or divorced, have a child, or lose a loved one, but these are all defining life events that may affect who you want to receive your pension benefits when you die. This article summarizes the death benefits provided to DROP participants and SDCERS retirees, but please review the Death Benefits Fact Sheet and Retirement Benefit Options Fact Sheet for more in-depth information.
Review the full article to learn about possible death benefits such as:Continuance Benefit$2,000 Retiree Death Benefit & Other Unpaid MoniesDROP Death BenefitUpdating your beneficiary designations is quick, easy, and you can do it from home by logging in to your SDCERS Member Portal account and clicking “Beneficiary Update” from the left menu. (If you don’t already have a Member Portal account, you can register here.)
You will be able to name beneficiaries to receive different types of death benefits depending on if you are active, in DROP, or retired. You can designate both a Primary and an Alternate beneficiary for your $2,000 Retiree Death Benefit and DROP Death Benefit. When you die, your Primary is first in line to collect the death benefit, while your Alternate receives the benefit only if the Primary is already deceased. For some death benefits, you can name multiple beneficiaries and designate a specific percentage of the benefit to each person. If you choose to do this, make sure your percentages add up to 100%. Lastly, you may also designate a trust to receive any death benefit that is not a continuance or an annuity.
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UPDATE: The Member Portal and IRIS are both back up and running as of approximately 3:00 p.m. today! You should now be able to log in to your Member Portal account. Please call SDCERS at (619) 525-3600 if you experience further difficulty or if you have any other questions regarding your SDCERS account. Thank you for your patience while we experienced technical difficulties.
ATTENTION: The SDCERS Member Portal is currently unavailable due to unexpected network connectivity issues. This means you will be unable to access your Member Portal account until these issues are resolved. SDCERS staff is working around the clock with our external IT vendor to fix the problem as quickly as possible. We will update this article as soon as the Member Portal is back online.
Additionally, our internal information system, IRIS, which we use to store and access member data and accounts, is also down due to the same connectivity issues. Therefore, you are welcome to contact our Call Center at (619) 525-3600, but staff will not be able to access your specific account information and will be unable to immediately answer most questions until IRIS is back up and running. In the meantime, we are happy to take a message and a staff member will contact you as soon as our systems are restored.
We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience – we know many of our members rely on access to their Member Portal account and have time-sensitive issues that need to be addressed quickly and efficiently. Please know that customer service is one of SDCERS’ core values and we are doing everything we can to restore the Member Portal and our internal systems as expeditiously as possible. We will update this article periodically as we find out more information.
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IRS Form 1099-R’s were mailed on January 13th from our vendor based in Chicago. This means all SDCERS retirees and beneficiaries who received a payment from SDCERS in 2019 should be receiving their 2019 1099-R forms via U.S. mail over the next couple of weeks. To access your 1099-R form sooner, please log in to your Member Portal account, click on “1099R and W2” on the left, and select “2019 1099R” to download an electronic copy. You can also update your tax withholding preferences on your Member Portal by clicking on “Tax Withholding.” This guide explains how to update your tax withholding preferences.
For a detailed explanation of the pertinent information in your 1099-R, as well as answers to frequently asked questions regarding this tax form, please review our 1099-R Fact Sheet. If you have additional questions, please contact the Call Center at (619) 525-3600 or submit your questions electronically via our Contact Us web form.
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Non-retired SDCERS Members will be receiving their Annual Statement of Benefits in the mail over the next several days. This statement contains detailed account information for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019, which means the information is current as of July 1, 2019. The purpose of this Annual Statement of Benefits is (1) to ensure that your beneficiary designations are updated, and (2) to keep you informed of the details of your SDCERS retirement account.Please review the information on your statement carefully and contact SDCERS if you need to update your information or if you believe there is an error in your statement.
A video detailing the contents of your statement is available here.
If you have questions about your Annual Statement of Benefits, please visit your Payroll Specialist or call the SDCERS Call Center at 619-525-3600. And remember, your most up-to-date account information is always available on the SDCERS Member Portal.
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ATTENTION! Please note we are closed April 1, 2019. In addition, on April 1, 2019 we will be conducting website maintenance. Our website, The Member Portal, and phones will be unavailable. We will resume regular business on April 2, 2019.
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As part of SDCERS Retirement Readiness campaign and our ongoing commitment to customer service, all members who have not yet retired will soon receive an Annual Member Statement. The purpose of the statement is to ensure that you are informed of the details of your SDCERS retirement account. Once you receive your Annual Member Statement, we encourage you to watch this video to learn all about them.
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SDCERS' new, enhanced Member Portal is now available!
Register today to take advantage of the new tools and features available to help you prepare for and enjoy retirement. Beginning June 9th, you will simply need to re-register on the new Portal to take advantage of the latest interactive and easy-to-use online tools to manage your benefits – at the highest level of security. Learn More...
Use the following five resources to learn more about your SDCERS retirement benefits. Learn More...