EMPLOYEE Update
UPDATE February 25, 2025, 2:23 p.m.:
Employee-related frequently asked questions about the eReporting outage can be found below.
UPDATE February 6, 2025, 10:22 a.m.:
The Division of Retirement and Benefits is happy to report its payroll reporting application, eReporting, is back online.
On November 4, the Division of Retirement and Benefits (Division) was notified by the Office of Information Technology (OIT) that unexpected activity was noted on the Division’s servers and all access to the State network and the servers had been severed until the issue could be investigated. The investigation process took approximately three weeks before the Division once again had connectivity. The Division’s data was not accessed, viewed, or exported, so no breach of information occurred. Due to the time it would take to restore and rebuild the servers and the requirement for the Division to move its programs and applications to the cloud, it was determined for the Division to complete the migration to the cloud that had started earlier in the year.
Except the State of Alaska and the Municipality of Anchorage, all participating employers use eReporting to report their payrolls to the Division for PERS, TRS, and/ or SBS processing. It was discovered that eReporting would need additional updates before it could be migrated to the cloud. These updates are now completed and the eReporting application has been successfully migrated.
The Division is now implementing a phased approach to bring employers back online and process the backlog of payrolls and plan contributions (both employee and employer). Division staff is working diligently with employers to manage this as quickly as possible. It will take a considerable amount of time for all the back payrolls to be processed, so you should not expect to see your contributions updated right away. Your contributions will update as the payrolls are processed.
The Division, in consultation with the Department of Law, has determined that it would be appropriate to provide compensation for potential lost earnings during the period contributions were not posted. The compensation method used will calculate earnings on your plan contributions/deferrals from the date your first payroll should have been posted up to the day it is posted into your account and ready for investment. Please check back with this page for the latest updates and the Division's Facebook page .
We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience as we continue to work to resolve this issue.
EMPLOYER Update
UPDATE February 19, 2025, 12:44 p.m.:
The Division is happy to report that the three-phased approach to bring employers back online is ahead of schedule. Employers were selected for each phase based on the oldest pay period end date (PPE) to be submitted and the size of each employer, based on their approximate number of employees.
The original phase timeline was:
- Phase 1: February 6 through February 26
- Phase 2: February 27 through March 19
- Phase 3: March 20 through April 9
We have been able to accelerate this timeline to:
- Phase 1: February 3 through February 5
- Phase 2: February 12 through February 15
- Phase 3: February 18 through April 9
If you have questions about the schedule or submission process, please get in touch with your DRB payroll contact.
The Division, in consultation with the Department of Law, has determined that it would be appropriate to provide compensation for potential lost earnings during the period contributions were not posted. The compensation method used will calculate earnings on your plan contributions/deferrals from the date your first payroll should have been posted up to the day it is posted into your account and ready for investment. Please check back with this page for the latest updates and the Division's Facebook page .
Again, thank you for your patience as we work with you to get the eReporting process up and running smoothly again.
UPDATE February 6, 2025, 10:22 a.m.:
The Division’s payroll reporting application, eReporting, is back online. Due to the eReporting outage that began in early November, there are approximately 1600 payrolls that need to be submitted from our participating employers and processed by our Active Payroll Team. Please recall that this outage was caused by an outside intrusion into the eReporting system and was necessary to protect payroll data and plan assets. We thank you for your patience as our team works with you to manage this backlog.
A schedule has been developed for employers to submit back payrolls to prevent the eReporting application from being overwhelmed by multiple payrolls sent in by all employers at once. The Division is implementing a three-phased approach to bring employers back online. Not all employers in each phase will be brought online the same day. Your DRB payroll contact will notify you directly when you are able to access eReporting. Once contacted, you will be able to submit payrolls for retirement systems that you normally report to the Division (PERS, TRS, and/or SBS).
- Phase 1: February 6 through February 26
- Phase 2: February 27 through March 19
- Phase 3: March 20 through April 9
We anticipate it will take 10-15 business days to fully onboard all employers in each phase. The Division will adjust the schedule to bring employers on sooner if possible, or to extend the onboarding schedule if issues are encountered.
Employers selected for each phase have been based on the oldest pay period end date (PPE) to be submitted and the size of each employer, based on their approximate number of employees. A detailed schedulefor each phase and specific details and instructions on how to begin payroll submission in eReporting are attached to this email. If you have questions about the schedule or submission process, please get in touch with your DRB payroll contact.
Again, thank you for your patience as we work with you to get the eReporting process up and running smoothly again.
UPDATE February 2, 2025, 11 a.m.:
eReporting is still in the final stages of testing. The Division will provide further updates once available.
Thank you for your patience.
UPDATE January 14, 2025, 3:12 p.m.:
The Division’s payroll reporting application, e-Reporting, is in the final testing stages. The Division believes we are on track to have e-Reporting back online on or before the end of January. A schedule is being developed for employers to submit back payrolls to prevent the eReporting application from being overwhelmed by multiple payrolls sent in by all employers at the same time. Once eReporting is back online, this schedule will be provided to all employers along with specific instructions on how to access the reconstructed eReporting application and submit back payrolls.
Thank you for your patience as the Division has worked through the eReporting outage issues.
UPDATE January 3, 2025, 1:45 p.m.:
On November 4, the Division of Retirement and Benefits (Division) was notified by the Office of Information Technology (OIT) that unexpected activity was noted on the Division’s servers and all access to the State network and the servers had been severed until the issue could be investigated. The investigation process took approximately three weeks before the Division once again had connectivity. The Division’s data was not accessed, viewed, or exported, so no breach of information occurred. Due to the time it would take to restore and rebuild the servers and the requirement for the Division to move its programs and applications to the cloud, it was determined to complete the migration to the cloud that had started earlier in the year. All applications successfully migrated to the cloud with the exception of e-Reporting and Employer Services. Both applications are the means by which employers report contributions to the plans. Employer Services is designed to report contributions of the two largest employers in the plans, The State of Alaska and the Municipality of Anchorage. This reporting tool has been successfully migrated and is operational for those employers.
All other participating employers use e-Reporting as it accommodates the more manual entry required by the smaller employers. It was discovered that e-Reporting would need additional updates before it was migrated to the cloud. The Division continues to work with the vendor that created it and is updating e-Reporting to get the application operational as soon as possible.
In the interim, the Division has a work-around which allows employers to submit their contributions to the plans. Because the work-around requires training of employer payroll staff to use and requires more manual work, Division payroll staff is contacting employers to set up times to walk them through the reporting process. This can be more time-consuming, but the Division is processing payrolls. Some employers have elected to wait until e-reporting is online.
The vendor informed the department that e-Reporting should be in the final testing phase hopefully next week.
Original post:
The Division is aware of the problem with e-Reporting, the retirement contribution reporting system. This issue is related to the outage experienced in November. Because of the outage, the Division had to move all systems and applications to a cloud environment. During the migration process, it was discovered that e-Reporting needed to be upgraded to operate in that environment. The Division had plans to migrate the system to the cloud at a later date, but the earlier transition was forced by the outage.
The Division does have a workaround for employers to report contributions. However, it involves manual input for both the employer and Division staff. Employer payrolls are still being processed and contributions are being sent to Empower for deposit into participant accounts, however the manual process is much slower.
The updated e-Reporting system should soon have the necessary security approvals so testing can begin. Once testing is completed, e-Reporting will be back online and ready to receive employer payrolls for processing. We currently anticipate it will be back online by January 15th.
We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience as we work to resolve this issue.
Frequently Asked Questions For Employees
eReporting Outage
The first payroll posting date is determined based on your employer’s payroll submission history. It reflects the date when the payroll should have been processed by the division.
The Division follows the IRS-required correction method, which permits the use of the Department of Labor correction calculator. This method calculates and restores any "lost earnings" by applying an appropriate interest rate to the affected amount over the error period. The goal is to return plan participants to the financial position they would have been in had the error not occurred.
Employees who have terminated employment and received a full refund of contributions will receive any additional contributions made to the plans in a separate check. If the terminated employee's account has not been refunded, the contributions will be added.
Corrections to VSP accounts will be made once the employer’s payrolls are processed, at which point interest will be recalculated accordingly.
Employees who have terminated employment and received a full refund of their contributions will receive any additional contributions made to the plans in a separate check from Empower once their payroll has been processed. Employees will be 100% vested in their contributions, and they will be vested in their employer contributions according to their vested percentage at the time of termination.
Interest will be corrected as the back payrolls are processed. The Division will not be charging interest on indebtedness payroll payments during the outage period.
