City of Baltimore Gives Citistreet Section 457 Administration Task

The City of Baltimore's Deferred Compensation Plan has selected CitiStreet to be the administrator for its 457 deferred compensation plan, it was announced today. CitiStreet will provide record keeping, administration, customer service, on site enrolment and communication and education for

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The City of Baltimore’s Deferred Compensation Plan has selected CitiStreet to be the administrator for its 457 deferred compensation plan, it was announced today.

CitiStreet will provide record keeping, administration, customer service, on-site enrolment and communication and education for Baltimore’s 457 plan, which has about $200 million in assets.

“We believe this selection will provide an especially important enhancement to the plan for our employees, because of new excellent education and communication materials and the approach that we will be implementing. We believe the new plan will greatly benefit existing participants and help increase enrolment,” said Ed Gallagher, spokesman for the Deferred Compensation Committee.

CitiStreet is adding an office in Baltimore. It also is designing special annual communications strategies targeting different groups of participants with messages specific to their circumstances.

“Baltimore fully appreciates that government employees need wide-ranging approaches to education and communications, including printed materials, on-site meetings and online delivery to be able to set and meet their retirement goals, especially in these difficult times,” said Randy Taylor, CitiStreet senior vice president, government markets.

The Baltimore plan investment offerings have been expanded to add three Smith Barney asset allocation funds and a large cap growth fund. Also, the plan’s stable value fund will now be under the management of State Street Global Advisors (SSgA). CitiStreet is a joint venture of State Street Corp. and Citigroup; SSgA is a division of State Street and Smith Barney is a division of Citigroup Asset Management.

The conversion to CitiStreet will occur in early December.

The Deferred Compensation Plan covers approximately 16,000 eligible city employees. There are approximately 9,200 actives and retirees currently participating in the plan.

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