Plan administrators and recordkeepers dealing with “unusual and challenging circumstances” brought on by the coronavirus pandemic received support from Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash., for extending administrative filing deadlines.
Murray, ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, sent a letter to Preston Rutledge, Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA).
It requested the Department of Labor quickly exercise its new authority afforded under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to extend filing deadlines for certain notice and disclosure requirements imposed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).
“This simple step would help plan administrators and record keepers across the country who are working under unusual and challenging circumstances by allowing them to prioritize the significant increase of requests and applications from families seeking help managing financial hardship over current filing deadlines,” Murray wrote.
COVID challenges
She went on to say “The devastating economic impact from this pandemic is already being felt in my home state of Washington. That’s why CARES provided relief and flexibility for families who may have no choice but to mortgage their future by taking early distributions from their retirement accounts after being forced into a desperate financial situation by this crisis.”
Noting that she understands there are already significant increases—not just in Washington state, but across the country—in hardship requests and loan applications, “This increase …in conjunction with other competing troubles that businesses are facing may overwhelm plan administrators and record keepers as they also try to juggle filing deadlines.”
Given these challenges amid the COVID-19 pandemic and what she says is “the foreseeable increase in hardship withdrawal and loan requests,” she urged the Labor Department to act swiftly and provide at least a 90-day extension for certain ERISA notice and disclosure requirements.”