A representative from IPERS, one of the several retirement programs available to Iowa State staff and their spouses, will visit campus Monday to explain the benefits program to staff members.

“This is the first time we’ve offered this workshop in years,” said Ann Molison, retirement specialist at the Human Resource Services’ Retirement Information and Planning Office.

There are fewer participants in IPERS now, but she said she feels it is important to offer this type of workshop every few years so those participating in the program can hear directly from IPERS representatives what their benefits will be.

The representative will use a computer with a modem to the Des Moines office to access people’s personal account data.

Employees can make appointments for half-hour individual counseling sessions by calling the IPERS office in Des Moines at 1-800-622-3849. Individual sessions will be scheduled for Monday between 8 and 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 and 4 p.m. in Room 245 of the Memorial Union.

General overview workshops about retirement options will be held at noon in Room 244 of the Memorial Union and at 7 p.m. in Room 204 of the Scheman Building.

ISU has several retirement programs from which staff can choose. The program the majority of the staff uses is TIAA-CREF, Molison said.

TIAA-CREF is a national insurance program, whereas IPERS is a state program.

Also TIAA-CREF is the oldest and largest retirement fund in the nation, Molison said, and is primarily for employees of educational and research institutes.

The major difference between IPERS and TIAA-CREF is the manner in which money invested in the retirement fund is invested.

IPERS is a defined benefit program, Molison said. In a defined benefit program, employees of a certain age who have worked for a certain number of years will know exactly what their benefits will be when they retire.

On the other hand, TIAA-CREF is a defined contribution program, she said. Under this program, employees put money in investment opportunities “similar to mutual funds.”

How they chose to invest their retirement money “depends on what kind of income [they] expect when [they] retire,” Molison said.

ISU staff with TIAA-CREF “have greater control over the investments of their funds that are being set aside for retirement through multiple different investment opportunities,” Molison said.

With TIAA-CREF, employees “take responsibility for making the decisions for how their contributions are invested,” Molison said.

There are nine separate funds in which employees under the program can choose to invest their money. “One has to spend more time researching the risks and the rewards of each one of the nine TIAA-CREF funds,” Molison said.

“IPERS is somewhat more predictable,” she said. “When you have a defined benefit program that just means that you know what you’re going to have after you’ve worked for the institution for a certain amount of years and you’re a certain age.”