Counselor, Financial Services, Finance & Banking

Class

Title:

Benefits Counselor I

Reports to:

Assistant Benefits Manager

Characteristics of the Class:
Under supervision, provides counseling to Fund members regarding all aspects of their pension benefits. Special projects and duties as assigned by Benefits Manager. Performs a variety of clerical and administrative support duties for all MEABF operational departments. This position’s work schedule is in-office weekly, Monday – Friday during regularly scheduled MEABF office hours depending on operational needs.

• Provides information to members by phone and in person on the rules and regulations governing the Fund regarding annuities, disability benefits, and refunds.
• Counsels active and retired members in person regarding their future and current benefit payments.
• Advices prospective retirees on various aspects that may affect their annuity benefits, including annuitant health care coverage, taxability of benefits and possible distribution penalties, social security rules and possible offset of social security benefits.
• Prepares calculations and draft letters to be mailed in response to annuity and refund estimate requests received by phone, mail, and email.
• Interacts with City and Board of Education records department to gather work histories and verify employment status for both participants and non-participants.
• Reviews work history and past refunds; calculates the cost to establish pension credit for former service, refund repayments, military service, union service, CHA service, PBC service, CTA service.
• Reviews the applications for retirement annuity and survivor’s annuity for completeness.
• Calculates actual benefit amounts for retirement annuity (including reciprocal fund annuities), “No Spouse” refund, errors in pension deduction, taxability of benefit amounts when member applies for retirement annuity; calculates surviving spouse annuity, child annuity, reversionary annuity, or refund to heirs upon member’s death,
• Consults with reciprocal funds regarding other their service and proportional share of annuity benefit; computes annuity amount after making any adjustment for overlapping of service credit and combined annuities that exceed the maximum.
• Complete verification of deposit forms from mortgage lenders and verification of assets forms for Housing, Social Security, and Unemployment Compensation.
• Assists members with completing fund forms and applications including membership records, retirement applications, survivor’s annuity applications, refund, and refund in lieu applications.
• Performs other duties as may be assigned by Benefits Manager and Assistant Managers.

Minimum Requirements:

Minimum one year of relevant pension experience. Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university is preferred, or at least five years of experience in a business administration or related field, where strong math skills are required. The MEABF uses the cloud-powered Microsoft 365 platform. Proficiency with this platform is required, specifically Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Teams.

• Ability to maintain MEABF member confidentiality.
• Adherence to MEABF data protection policy.
• Effective verbal and written communication skills.
• Good math and analytical skills with strong attention to detail.
• Ability to work under deadline pressure.
• Ability to pivot to address reprioritized objectives.

Skilled, verbal communication, superior customer service ability, clear, concise writing are mandatory. The ability to determine member needs and explain/teach new information to a wide range of personalities is required. The Benefits section works as a team and requires a collegial attitude. Multi-lingual, with strong…