Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com June 27, 2016 • Hartford Business Journal 9 be if they entered the private IRA marketplace with their small account on their own. Annual- ly, it is estimated the program will cost approxi- mately $500,000 in administrative costs, which is projected to amount to a 50 basis points (0.50 percent or half of one percent) annual fee on participants' account balances. The startup costs are estimated to be between $500,000 and $1.5 million. The program assumes that the private-sector provider(s) cho- sen through a competitive bidding process to manage the program would take on the initial startup costs — not taxpayers — in exchange for a longer contract period. The statute allows for as long as a 10-year contract period in order to recoup startup costs, which would be done through the aforementioned 50 basis points (0.50 percent) administrative fee. Q: Who will manage/sell the IRA funds? A: The quasi-public agency created by the statute, the Connecticut Retirement Security Authority (Authority), will contract with a pri- vate-sector provider to manage the IRA funds. The statute provides that there be multiple qualified investment options offered by mul- tiple vendors for participants to choose from. The default investment option for the IRA funds will be a target date fund, but the stat- ute also allows the Authority to decide to offer other kinds of investment options as well. n Q&A: Kevin Lembo and Fidelity earlier this year launched one pay- ing $2,000 a year for five years, Elliott said. "Even within this benefit, we're starting to see a little bit of competition and a little bit of uptick in the richness of the benefit," he said. According to a 2016 NerdWallet study, "undergraduate student debt holders could shave off nearly three years of payments and have $4,100 cut in interest from what they owe by taking advantage of a typical employ- er contribution program." That shows, Elliott said, that the benefit is more than the annual payment, it's also the overall benefit and what graduates are going to save on the loans' interest expense. Overall, retaining staff and talent is a major benefit of the program because turn- over has a cost, Elliott said. With Millennials now the largest share of the U.S. labor force and susceptible to job-hopping for compensation, "adding this type of a benefit and spreading it out over multiple years really does make sense if you're looking to actively engage and retain the talent that you have," he said. " … The reality of the situation is that we're going to start to see much more flex- ibility in benefits because at the end of the day, it's much easier to cut a benefit than it is to cut salary," he said. Local attraction Mark Soycher, an employment lawyer at the Connecticut Business & Industry Association who regularly speaks with CBIA member com- panies about employment law compliance and best-practice matters, including benefit strate- gies, hasn't had companies ask about the ben- efit, but expects more will explore it. And they don't have to be large compa- nies to offer a repayment program, as Foley demonstrated. When Foley was considering its program, it saw big companies like Fidelity were doing it, Pummell said. "We thought, 'Well, you don't have to be large to do something good for your employ- ees,' " Pummell said. "So we figured we'd jump into it." n Foley H B J P H O T O | J O H N S T E A R N S Jillian Doll, Foley's head of talent acquisition, said the Hartford company's student loan repayment program is a major recruiting tool, especially for recent college grads. Achieve the impossible. They do. They pioneer treatments that change medicine. They are the caregivers who are setting national standards for best practices and patient satisfaction. They are some of the best and brightest in medicine. They are all part of one comprehensive system that encompasses the very best of today's health care. Yale New Haven Health. A health system of three leading hospitals, thousands of community physicians and skilled specialists, plus science and technology recognized as among the most advanced anywhere. YaleNewHavenHealth.org Bridgeport Hospital Greenwich Hospital Yale New Haven Hospital Northeast Medical Group Jeannette Koziel, APRN Manuel Rodriguez-Davalos, MD YNHH-3670 BrandHBJ7.437x9.625R1.indd 1 6/6/16 11:54 AM

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