Board of Regents task force approves phased-retirement framework for Louisiana higher education

A Board of Regents task force on phased retirement approved a package of recommendations on implementing phased retirement across Louisiana public postsecondary institutions, covering who may qualify, how enrollments should be structured and how retirement benefits and employer contributions should be handled.

Speaker 3, who led the presentation, said the task force’s charge under HR 143 included reviewing program structure in other states, estimating costs, and recommending eligibility criteria. "The enrollee must be retirement eligible to participate and retirement eligible under their respective retirement system," Speaker 3 said, summarizing the eligibility standard the group adopted.

The framework approved by the group sets enrollment terms at 12 to 36 months, requires a minimum of 10 years’ collective service at Louisiana public postsecondary institutions and a minimum age of 59. Participating employees must sign an MOU with their institution defining workload, schedule expectations and sign-offs by an institution human-resources officer, a chief academic officer and a chief fiscal officer; workload in the MOU must be at least 50%.

On benefit treatment, the task force combined separate draft bullets for defined-benefit (DB) and Optional Retirement Plan (ORP) participants into a single section. DB plan members will receive a pro rata portion of retirement benefits based on each system’s defined percent of effort (not less than 50%); the task force recommended no employee or employer contributions be made to a DB plan on behalf of an enrollee during phased enrollment. For ORP participants the group recommended that participants may continue to contribute to their ORP plans and that employer contributions continue, with contributions prorated to adjusted salary/workload as reflected in the MOU.

The group debated administrative complexity and equity between the DB and ORP populations. Several members urged language that minimizes disparate treatment while also keeping the policy administrable; the final wording replaces references to "employment" with "benefit status" to clarify that benefit eligibility, rather than an absolute employment designation, is preserved.

Financial recommendations include a strong recommendation that employers increase minimum contributions from 6.2% to 8%, but the task force made that contingent on the passage of a constitutional amendment or on recurring state appropriations so the change would not impose an unfunded mandate. "We strongly recommend that employers increase their minimum employer contributions to the 8%," Speaker 3 said, while adding contingency language about funding.

The task force also approved adjusting the distribution of the TRSL administrative fee charged to ORP participants: beginning July 1, 2026 the current 0.05% administrative fee will be split evenly so employees are not debited more than 0.025%; the task force suggested future consideration that employers cover the fee entirely if recurring state funding is appropriated.

To address disparity in benefit mechanics for ORP members (who cannot buy service time or participate in drop), the task force recommended paying ORP participants an additional 100 hours of unused leave (task force language later widened to ‘unused leave’) to improve parity with DB members; members debated whether that payout should be contingent on funding or a strong recommendation accompanied by a request for recurring appropriations. Cost estimates cited in discussion ranged across campuses in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in aggregate.

All recommendations reviewed in the meeting were approved by voice vote with no recorded opposition. The task force said it will revise the draft report to reflect edits made during the meeting and will post the final document on the Board of Regents website after internal review.

The task force emphasized that these are recommendations for consideration by the Board of Regents and by the systems; implementation details such as exact MOU language, prorating formulas and any statutory steps will be determined in later institutional or legislative processes.