BISMARCK, ND ( KXNET) — North Dakota state lawmakers approved making changes to the Public Employees Retirement or PERS plan, so today, several lawmakers got a progress report on how the switch over is coming along.

The legislature approved closing the defined benefit plan enrolling state employees in a defined contribution plan. This comes after state leaders say the PERS plan was nearly two billion dollars in debt.

Today, Derrick Hohbein, Chief Operating Financial Officer for PERS, said starting July 1st, PERS is switching its DC record keeper from TIAA to Empower. They’ll also be sharing new guidance with state agencies next month on what the plan means for workers, which includes colleges and universities.

“We’ve been working through, we’ve been trying to identify what we call a working payroll cycle. So, it’s just a way to capture how employers are reporting how their pay cycles work,” explained Hohbein. ” Are they bi-weekly? Are they paying semi-monthly? Like what their pay periods actually fall and look like. And as we’ve been having communications like that, throughout the last 3-4 years, we’ve been capturing what software provider they happen to use, if it just happens to come up in conversation.”

The PERS board will next meet on May 23; the plan is expected to go into effect on January 1st of next year.

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