On Thursday, Mar. 12, Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.) introduced the Public Service Retirement Fairness Act of 2020. If enacted, the legislation would enable the use of collective investment trusts by 403(b) plans to use collective investment trusts (CITs). This will provide public school employees and other governmental 403(b) plan participants access to the same lower cost investment vehicles available to other state and local government employees.
The legislation is cosponsored by Reps. Ron Estes (R-Kan.), Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), Darin LaHood, (R-Ill.), members of the House Ways and Means Committee with Rep. Panetta, and Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), and Andy Barr (R-Ky.), members of the House Financial Services Committee. NAGDCA worked with Rep. Panetta to get the bill introduced and has identified it as a legislative priority.
The bill is a stand-alone counterpart to a provision in S.1431, the Retirement Security and Savings Act, introduced by Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) in May 2019.