It appears that there has been some confusion over the changes to the retirement plan. Rest assured, there have been no changes to the employer’s contributions to the retirement plan. There are two ways in which Sacred Heart currently contributes towards employees’ retirement: the 403(b) Value Plan and the 401(a) Service Plan. Under the 403(b) Value Plan, employees contribute a percentage of their income, and Sacred Heart matches a portion of those contributions as shown in the second column of the chart below. Effective July 1, 2023, current 403(b) accounts will be frozen, meaning simply that no new contributions will be made to the account; but the accounts will continue to grow based on the investments contained therein. Employee contributions and employer matching contributions will go into a 401(k) plan, which includes collective investment trust (CIT) investment options, which generally have lower fees than mutual funds offered under the 403(b) Value Plan. This is a positive change.

As part of the 401(k) Plan requirements, nurses must have 1,000 hours of service rather than the current 800 hours of service each year (as under the current plan, this includes fully-compensated, non-worked hours such as PTO, EIB, paid LOA, etc.) to progress to the next level of matching shown in the second column in the chart below. This is the same for all other employees at Sacred Heart and will affect very few nurses. Please note that regardless of the number of hours worked in a year, nurses will still receive employer matching contributions when they save in the plan, even if they work less than 1000 hours in a year. It is just that a few employees may take slightly longer to progress to the next match level in the second column below. Nurses that already have 10 or more years of match level service are not affected by this change.

In addition to its matching contributions, Sacred Heart also fully funds a separate plan (the 401(a) Service Plan) with employer contributions based on an employee's years of service. Under this plan, Sacred Heart contributes between 3% and 6% of an employee’s salary based on the employee’s years of service as shown in the third column in the chart below. Currently, nurses must work 1000 hours in a year (as under the current plan, this includes fully-compensated, non-worked hours such as PTO, EIB, paid LOA, etc.) to be eligible to receive these contributions. And that will still be the case going forward. Nothing has changed in this regard. Effective July 1, 2023, the 401(a) Service Plan accounts will be rolled into the 401(k) Savings Plan, which generally has lower fees than mutual funds.

Further, the 401(a) Service Plan had what is known as “cliff vesting” - which means that employees were not entitled to any of the employer’s annual discretionary contributions until they had been employed for at least five years. This means that if an employee separated from Sacred Heart before five years, they would get none of the employer discretionary contributions. The new 401(k) plan has “graded vesting,” which means that if an employee leaves before five years they are entitled to a portion of the employer’s discretionary contributions based on how long they have worked. This is a significant positive change, and it applies to balances caregivers already have in the 401(a) Service Plan. Employer matching contributions to the 403(b) Value Plan and 401(k) Savings Plan are always 100% vested.

All other employees at Sacred Heart are under the 401(k) Plan under the terms described above.

The new 401(k) Savings Plan contains the following contribution rates, which are the same as those presently available under the 403(b) and 401(a) plans:

Questions? Contact one of your WSNA negotiating team members!

Clint Wallace, ICU WSNA CoChair
Alyssa Boldt, 9N WSNA CoChair
Jen Haines, NICU WSNA Secretary
Rian Williams, NICU WSNA Treasurer
Wendy McNairy, ECT WSNA Grievance Officer
Jessica Lewellen, AGPU WSNA Mem-at-Large
Alle Machorro, ICU WSNA Mem-at-Large
Kaila Phillips General Care Unit
Kelsey South Adult ED
Allison Raasina Operating Room
Cindy Escamilla-Patterson Clinical Documentational Specialist

Other questions: Contact Nurse Representative Jaclyn Smedley BSN, RN at jsmedley@wsna.org