There are also employer contributions to TSERS. These contributions are not credited to a member’s individual account. Instead, they are placed in the various trust funds for the payment of specific benefits.

Contribution rates are set for the fiscal year, from July 1 to June 30.

View contribution rates for 2024-2025

Employers must report and submit monthly member and employer contributions, which are based on each member’s salary, to the Retirement Systems Division through the ORBIT employer reporting process. By submitting your required TSERS employer monthly information to the Retirement Systems Division, you are certifying the accuracy of the information.

If contributions are received on or after the fifth state government working day of the month, a penalty of one percent of the contributions due, with a minimum of $25 per month, must be paid by the employer due to delinquent employee and employer contributions. The TSERS Board of Trustees may waive one penalty per employer every five years if the Board determines that the employer consistently demonstrated good-faith efforts to comply with the deadline.

If an employer fails to submit required payments to TSERS within 90 days of the date due, the Retirement Systems Division may collect delinquent payments by intercepting state appropriations allocated to the delinquent employer. Upon notification from the Retirement Systems Division of the employer’s failure to submit payment, the Office of State Budget and Management must withhold the amount due to the Retirement Systems Division from any state appropriations for the employer and transmit the amount to the Retirement Systems Division. Also, the State Board of Education must withhold from any state appropriation due to a local school administrative unit the sum of all delinquent contributions and payments due to the Retirement Systems Division and remit that amount to the Retirement Systems Division.

In addition, if TSERS (or the Disability Income Plan of North Carolina) prevails in a civil action against a participating employer to collect monies owed, the Retirement Systems Division may attach or garnish the employers’ credit card receipts or other third-party payments.

Click here for the Schedule for Submitting Contribution Summary Instructions

Employers must submit detail data, summary information and contributions through ORBIT each month through one of the following methods: 

• Enter Report: Through the secure ORBIT Employer website, you can enter the data. 
   
• Submit Report: Through the secure ORBIT Employer website, you can upload the data file to the Retirement Systems Division for processing. 
   
• FTP (File Transfer Protocol): If you do not wish to use ORBIT, you must send the monthly data file to the Retirement Systems Division for processing.

Detailed information about all of these methods and all reporting requirements is here. 

In accordance with Rule .0401, Chapter 2B, Title 20, of the North Carolina Administrative Code, the Retirement Systems Division cannot make refunds of employer contributions in cases of erroneous employee deductions, except those which are corrected by the employing unit on a subsequent payroll within the calendar year in which the errors occur. The only exception to this rule is that an error occurring in December may be corrected (without loss of the employer contribution) by submission of a revised payroll for the correct amount before January 31 of the following year.

Employers of law enforcement officers must also contribute on a monthly basis to the NC Supplemental Retirement Income NC 401(k) Plan. An additional five percent of each law enforcement officer’s compensation must be submitted each month.