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Council adopts pension-plan amendments after third-party administrator review
Summary
Ordinance 25-082 to amend pension plan provisions for the County 2011 plan passed after staff said a new administrator required document changes to comply with the Internal Revenue Code; one council member questioned how compliance issues arose.
New Castle County Council approved Ordinance 25-082 on July 8, 2025, revising county pension-plan procedures in Chapter 26, Article 4 to align administration of the County 2011 plan and related deferred-compensation plans with the requirements of the county's new third-party administrator. The ordinance passed by roll call; the clerk recorded 12 yes and 1 absent.
Councilman Cartier said the county's finance office conducted a competitive market review of third-party administrators for its 457 deferred-compensation and 401(a) defined-contribution plans as existing contracts were expiring. The winning vendor, Empower, required certain changes to plan documents and procedures to ensure compliance with the Internal Revenue Code and to align with Empower's administration processes, Cartier said. The pension board and trustees reviewed the proposed changes.
Councilman Street questioned how the county could have contracts or administrative arrangements that later revealed federal noncompliance, saying the county's audits had previously shown no problems: "all audits over all these years and even the single audit, everything was perfect ... and then there's federal noncompliance. I don't understand it," he said.
No members of the public spoke on the ordinance during the meeting. The roll call recorded approval; implementation steps were discussed at committee level earlier but specific timeline or cost impacts were not detailed on the council floor.
