Strategic Plan in Action

Earlier this year IMRF shared its 2026-2028 Strategic Plan. The plan focuses on 4 key initiatives focusing on Operational Excellence, Customer Engagement, Financial Health, and Workforce Engagement.

Below is an update on the work IMRF is doing in each of these areas, with a focus on Operational Excellence and Customer Engagement.

Operational Excellence

Teams from across IMRF have been working together to streamline business processes to reduce the time it takes to begin paying benefits (refunds, retirement and disability benefits). This includes finding ways to communicate to members about the information they need to submit when they first apply for benefits and developing improved business processes to make finalizing the benefits faster.

This is time-intensive work, but IMRF knows members will see long-term positive outcomes as each business process is optimized.

Customer Engagement

Additional teams at IMRF are conducting interviews with members and employers to better understand what is working and what needs to be improved from the viewpoint of our stakeholders.

The input that we are receiving will be shared across the organization to improve business processes and help us address concerns.

Workforce Engagement

Over the past year IMRF has hired additional staff to work in our Contact Center. It takes many months for these staff to be fully trained and able to answer the wide variety of questions that IMRF receives every day. As more IMRF team members begin to answer the large variety of questions from members and retirees, the new, larger Contact Center will be able to assist more people.

Financial Health

IMRF released its annual Popular Annual Financial Report (PAFR) for January 1, 2025, through December 31, 2025.

A few of the key results include:

• IMRF’s investment portfolio earned a net return rate of 14.7%, double the expected rate of return of 7.25%.
• The portfolio grew by $6.4 billion to $61.7 billion.
• IMRF’s pensions have an actuarial funded status of 97.4%, which means IMRF has 97 cents for every dollar of current and future benefits it will pay to members and retirees.

View the full report to learn more.

We Need Your Help!

While we are working to make improvements, we also need your help. Below are some things you can do to help IMRF achieve its goals in the Strategic Plan:

• Create a Member Access account
• Keep your contact information and beneficiaries up to date in Member Access
• Choose to get documents electronically
• Create and submit documents and forms in your Member Access account