Dear NAGDCA Members,
It has been a fast start to the year for the NAGDCA team, and I want to take this opportunity to update you on our work so far in 2026.
Hopefully, you saw that we recently announced our first new member group in several years. The state automatic-IRA programs have joined NAGDCA, and we are thrilled to have them. While their end user is different than yours, their experience as public sector retirement plan administrators is largely the same. We hope that, as they integrate more deeply into our membership, you get to know them and help them learn from your experiences.
Our first step in working with them has been to establish legislative priorities. On some topics, their interests overlap with the rest of our government members, such as the ability to roll Roth IRA dollars into Roth employer plans. This has been a NAGDCA Legislative Priority for several years, and would greatly contribute to fluidity in the broader retirement system. People move and change jobs, and the inability to roll Roth balances to an IRA and back to an employer plan is a huge impediment to balance consolidation for individuals. A bill has already been proposed to address this issue, and we look forward to helping it become law.
Other topics are unique to the auto-IRAs. The President recently mentioned the concept of a federally administered universal retirement savings vehicle in the State of the Union address. Currently, the details on the proposal are limited, but previous proposals related to a national automatic IRA from Congressman Neal (D, MA) and a universal 401(k) with a federal match from Senator Hickenlooper (D, CO) would have important implications for all of our members, but especially the state IRA programs. We have already begun our engagement with congress to ensure that any federal proposal will work with state programs and preserve the unique characteristics of public DC plans. We will have many more details on this as the year progresses, so stay tuned.
Outside of our legislative work, we have started building our early draft of the conference agenda. Thank you to all of you who submitted a proposal. We have a terrific variety of ideas to choose from, and the Annual Conference Committee is hard at work picking between them. It is hard to believe we’re already talking about late September, but we will be in Orlando before we know it!
Finally, we have continued our progress in building formal education courses available through a new platform we are developing. We are starting with the basics, “The Fundamentals of Public Defined Contribution Plans”, to provide a common entry point for staff and committee members who are new to the industry. We think that those of you who have been around for a while could learn something from the courses as well. We will update you on our progress with that course, and the others we currently have in development, but expect them to be available by the end of the year.
As you can see, it’s a busy time at NAGDCA, and we will continue to work hard to provide value for your membership. Thank you for being a part of our community, and for everything you do!
All the Best,
Matt