First, do not panic! A compliance review does not mean you are doing anything wrong—it is an opportunity to confirm compliance with the provisions of the Pension Code and is considered best practice for public pension funds. This aligns with IMRF’s mission of providing income protection to members and their beneficiaries.
Selection of employers to be reviewed is completed in December prior to the upcoming year. For this selection, factors such as the date of the last IMRF compliance review, employer representative territory, and type/size of employer are considered. The number of employer compliance reviews to be performed each year is approved by the IMRF Audit Committee (of the Board of Trustees). IMRF reviews approximately 200 employers each year.
The most successful employer compliance reviews are those in which the employer (you and your organization) and IMRF (through its Employer Compliance team) have a collaborative and constructive working relationship. Our objective is to involve you at every stage of the review so you understand what is being done and why.
The compliance review timeline
A typical employer compliance review conducted remotely from our Oak Brook office, will last 1 – 3 days, but this can vary depending on the size of employer and complexity of the review. We will provide a tentative timeline at the beginning of your review. You can help meet the timeline by ensuring our compliance team has prompt access to the people and documentation we need to complete the review. We make every effort to limit disruptions to your ongoing activities.
The Compliance Review Process
The compliance review process generally includes four phases: Planning, Testing, Reporting, and Follow-up.
Planning
Three weeks before the first day of testing, an appointment letter is issued by the lead associate via email. This email will include the following documents: Employer Compliance Review Questionnaire, Employer Compliance Review Document Checklist, IMRF Wage Reconciliation, and instructions of how to send all requested items through the online secure message tool via Employer Access.
How do I prepare for a compliance review?
Testing
This process takes 1-3 days. Compliance Associates complete the compliance review program by testing your entity’s payroll and financial records to validate proper enrollment, wage reporting, and use of IMRF tax levy monies. The testing of these areas may be performed either on-site (at your location) or remotely from the IMRF Oak Brook office. The Exit Interview is typically during our last day of testing. We will meet with you (in person or through a phone call) to provide a preliminary summary of all of our compliance findings and observations.
Reporting
We will prepare a formal compliance report based on the findings discussed during the exit interview. This report will be emailed to you with instructions for resolving any identified issues within two weeks of completion of the testing.
Follow-up
Your entity will provide a written action plan for each compliance finding including planned corrective actions and responsible personnel within two weeks of the date on the compliance report.
Post-Compliance Survey
We value the opinion of our employers. After we have issued your compliance report, we will ask you to complete an electronic feedback survey about the service we provided. Your input helps the employer compliance unit continually evaluate the quality of our compliance services and identifies ways to improve our service to better serve you.