WELCOME to the Retired State Employees Association website.

The RSEA is an independent, volunteer-driven, not-for-profit organization of retired State of Illinois employees and their survivors.

Last year State Employees’ Retirement System (SERS) had nearly 70,000 retirees and survivors receiving over $2.1 billion in retirement annuities - those are not small numbers.
While others in Illinois may fixate on the $2.1 billion, we want to show the influence of tens of thousands of retirees speaking with a unified voice.

We hope you will join us in our efforts. Your membership is important to the RSEA, our retirees, and to you. The more members an organization has, the stronger it becomes, and we use that strength to protect the rights and benefits of State retirees. Our membership dues allow us to fund our efforts to show elected officials and other policymakers that State retirees are actively interested in decisions that affect us.

The Benefits of Membership

The RSEA advocates for its membership as a whole – The Association participates in lawsuits to preserve and protect our healthcare and pension annuity benefits.  Additionally, we monitor proposed legislation that may affect retirement benefits, contacting legislators, and even making proposed changes when needed.

Other member benefits include a monthly newsletter (The Reporter), interesting guest speakers at our monthly meetings (ranging from representatives of the Alzheimer’s Association to gubernatorial candidates), and access to our Facebook group (which allows us to stream our monthly meetings to our members who might live outside the central Illinois region).

Join Today

CHANGES TO DEFINED COMPENSATION PLAN

UPDATE:  See 'Latest News' for CMS Response to RSEA's questions about Deferred Comp Changes.

Fellow State Retirees:  By now you have received your brochure from CMS stating they are moving from T. Rowe Price as their Defined Comp manager to a different provider, Empower Retirement.  This change is due to take effect on July 1st, 2022.

While the suddenness of this change has caught us flat-footed, it appears to be a done deal. With that in mind, we want to remind you of several important dates associated with this process.

As we said, July 1st your assets will be managed by Empower Retirement.
On June 27th thru the week of July 10th, you will have limited or no access to your account.
You will not be able to check your account balance or transfer or diversify your investments.
You will not be able to obtain a loan, make a withdrawal or distribution from your State of Illinois Deferred Comp account.
Therefore, if there are changes that you MANUALLY make to your account (like a distribution) during the last week or the first week of the month, you may want to consider taking action to avoid being locked out of your account during this period.

Per the CMS brochure "To review you plan account before the blackout period begins, contact T.Rowe Price at 888-457-5770 or access your account online at rps.troweprice.com by June 27th,2022.  If you have questions concerning this notice, please contract Empower at 833-969-ILDC (833-969-4532)."