Career Opportunity

Retirement Analyst - San Francisco Employees' Retirement System (1812) (143247)

Recruitment: RTF0143246-01104929

Published: December 27, 2023

Apply using SmartRecruiters, the City and County of San Francisco's application portal.

About:

The San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System ("SFERS") offers an exceptional opportunity for the right candidates to serve this historic, well established City Department by engaging in interesting and rewarding mission critical work. Established in 1889 as a fund for families and orphans of firefighters and police officers, today the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System serves more than 75,000 active, vested, and retired employees of the City and County of San Francisco and their survivors.

Our Mission

The San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System is dedicated to securing, protecting, and prudently investing the pension trust assets, administering mandated benefits programs, and providing promised benefits to the active and retired members of the City and County of San Francisco.

Specific information regarding this recruitment process is listed below:

• Application Opening: December 27, 2023
• Application Deadline: May close at any time, but not before January 4, 2024
• Recruitment ID: RTF0143246-01104929

This job announcement will not close before January 4, 2024. Interested applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible.

Role description

Under general supervision, the Retirement Analyst performs professional benefits work for the various complex retirement plans of the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System. The incumbent may be required to rotate working in various units in the Retirement Services Division.

Examples of primary duties may include:

• Computes retirement benefits payable to members including, but not limited to, pension, service purchases, survivor benefits, marriage dissolution, and separation benefits upon termination.
• Calculates, reviews, and verifies service credit for members.
• Recalculates and adjusts retirement benefits.
• Counsels members about retirement benefits in person, in writing, and/or via telephone/video conference. Responds to member inquiries, researches issues as needed, and provides instructions to members to complete required forms.
• Enrolls new members in system and explains benefit entitlements and options.
• Identifies, researches, and analyzes payroll records; calculates and adjusts benefits and retirement contributions; and updates databases as a result of corrections and changes. Maintains and posts payroll data for active and retired members. Reviews and evaluates legal documents and death records for accuracy, compliance, and approval (includes divorce, death, and Power of Attorney related documents). Calculates survivor and division of community property benefits. Provides account balances upon request.
• Reviews, sorts, and verifies disability applications and related documents. Obtains necessary records and prepares applications for legal review. Computes disability retirement benefits, adjustments, and workers’ compensation recovery calculations.
• Participates and assists in conducting retirement seminars and group counseling sessions.
• Documents procedures, provides assistance to Benefits Technicians, and completes special projects as assigned.
• Performs other related duties as required.

How to qualify

1. Possession of a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university, preferably in economics, finance, accounting, statistics, business administration, human resources, psychology, sociology, public administration, or a related field; AND
2. One year of experience in the administration of employee benefit programs, including counseling clients, performing calculations, researching client information, and using computers to analyze and/or obtain data. Must include proficiency in the use of computers to perform word processing, prepare spreadsheets, and perform data entry/retrieval.

Substitution:

Additional direct experience with an employee pension plan (preferably a defined benefit plan) may be substituted for the education requirement on a year for year basis (two years = 60 semester units).

Desirable Qualifications:
The stated desirable qualifications may be used to identify job finalists at the end of the selection process when candidates are referred for hiring.

• Minimum of two years verifiable experience with employee retirement or employee benefit or entitlement programs involving analysis of data for counseling and benefit calculations with a public sector retirement and/or pension plan or experience with a defined benefit plan or defined contribution plan.
• Minimum of one year verifiable experience processing and handling numerical data records.
• Minimum of one year verifiable experience working in a customer service focused environment.
• Working knowledge of PeopleSoft preferred.
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office, including Microsoft Excel for performing data analysis and calculations.
• Strong oral and written communication.

Verification

Applicants may be required to submit verification of qualifying education and experience at any point during the recruitment and selection process. If education verification is required, information on how to verify education requirements, including verifying foreign education credits or degree equivalency, can be found at https://sfdhr.org/how-verify-education-requirements.

Note: Falsifying one’s education, training, or work experience or attempted deception on the application may result in disqualification for this and future job opportunities with the City and County of San Francisco.

All work experience, education, training, and other information substantiating how you meet the minimum qualifications must be included on your application by the filing deadline. Information submitted after the filing deadline will not be considered in determining whether you meet the minimum qualifications.

Resumes will not be accepted in lieu of a completed City and County of San Francisco application. 

Applications completed improperly may be cause for ineligibility, disqualification, or may lead to lower scores.

SELECTION PROCEDURES

After application submission, candidates deemed qualified must complete all subsequent steps to advance in this selection process, which include the following:

Minimum Qualification Supplemental Questionnaire (Weight: Qualifying)

Candidates will be sent a minimum qualification supplemental questionnaire (MQSQ) to complete and submit. This MQSQ is designed to obtain specific information regarding a candidate's experience in relation to the Minimum Qualifications for this position. It is essential that candidates provide complete information in identifying their education, experience, and training. The MQSQ will be used to evaluate if the applicant possesses the required minimum qualifications.

Supplemental Questionnaire Evaluation (Weight: 100%)

Candidates who meet the position’s minimum qualification requirements will be sent a Supplemental Questionnaire (SQ) that must be completed by the set date. Candidates will be evaluated on their relative knowledge, skill and ability levels in job-related areas. A passing score must be achieved on the SQ in order to be placed/ranked on the Eligible List.

Applicants meeting the minimum qualifications are not guaranteed to advance through all of the steps in the selection process. The department may administer additional selection procedures upon certification in order to make a final hiring decision.

Candidates’ scores on this examination may also be applied to other announcements involving other job titles, when directed by the Human Resources Director.

Upon approval of the Human Resource Director (see Civil Service Rule 111A.26.5), the eligible list resulting from this announcement may be used by other departments that also use this classification or a similar classification. To find other Departments which use this classification, please visit here. Search that document by title or job code to see which departments use the classification.

What else should I know?

Eligible List/Score Report

A confidential eligible list of applicant names that have passed the civil service examination process will be created, and used for certification purposes only. An examination score report will be established, so applicants can view the ranks, final scores and number of eligible candidates. Applicant information, including names of applicants on the eligible list, shall not be made public unless required by law. However, an eligible list shall be made available for public inspection, upon request, once the eligible list is exhausted or expired and referrals resolved. The eligible list/score report resulting from this civil service examination process is subject to change after adoption (e.g., as a result of appeals), as directed by the Human Resources Director or the Civil Service Commission.

The duration of the eligible list resulting from this examination process will be six months, and may be extended with the approval of the Human Resources Director.

Certification

The certification rule for the eligible list resulting from this examination will be Rule of Three. Additional selection processes may be conducted by the hiring department prior to making final hiring decisions.

Applicants must be guided solely by the provisions of this announcement, including requirements, time periods and other particulars, except when superseded by federal, state or local laws, rules or regulations. Clerical errors may be corrected by the posting the correction on the Department of Human Resources website at careers.sf.gov.

The terms of this announcement may be appealed under Civil Service Rule 111A.35.1. The standard for the review of such appeals is “abuse of discretion” or “no rational basis” for establishing the position description, the minimum qualifications and/or the certification rule. Appeals must include a written statement of the item(s) being contested and the specific reason(s) why the cited item(s) constitute(s) abuse of discretion by the Human Resources Director. Appeals must be submitted directly to the Executive Officer of the Civil Service Commission within five business days of the announcement issuance date.

Additional Information Regarding Employment with the City and County of San Francisco:

• Information About The Hiring Process
• Conviction History
• Employee Benefits Overview  
• Equal Employment Opportunity 
• Disaster Service Worker
• ADA Accommodation
• Seniority Credit in Promotional Exams
• Veterans Preference
• Right to Work
• Copies of Application Documents
• Diversity Statement

HOW TO APPLY

All applicants must submit a resume and completed job application (all sections, including Experience and Education, must be completed) in order to be considered. Resumes will not be taken as a substitute for completing the application. 

Applications for City and County of San Francisco jobs are only accepted through an online process.

Visit careers.sf.gov and begin the application process.

• Select the “Apply Now” button and follow instructions on the screen.

Applicants may be contacted by email about this recruitment and, therefore, it is their responsibility to ensure that their registered email address is accurate and kept up-to-date. Also, applicants must ensure that email from CCSF is not blocked on their computer by a spam filter. To prevent blocking, applicants should set up their email to accept CCSF mail from the following addresses (@sfgov.org, @sfdpw.org, @sfport.com, @flysfo.com, @sfwater.org, @sfdph.org, @asianart.org, @sfmta.com, @sfpl.org, @dcyf.org, @first5sf.org, @famsf.org, @ccsf.edu, @smartalerts.info, and @smartrecruiters.com).

Applicants will receive a confirmation email that their online application has been received in response to every announcement for which they file. Applicants should retain this confirmation email for their records. Failure to receive this email means that the online application was not submitted or received.

If you have any questions regarding this recruitment or application process, please contact the exam analyst, Karen Perez, at karen.perez@sfgov.org.                            

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.