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Rolling Over Your Old 403(b)

What do I do with my old 403(b) when I switch jobs?

If you are an educator, changing jobs means you must decide what to do with the money in your 403b retirement account. Leaving the money in an old 403b may not be the best option since it is not growing and there will be no new contributions. Withdrawing the money makes it taxable income and Uncle Sam wants his fair share.

The best thing to do may be to roll that money over into a retirement account that earns money and will help the balance grow. An old 403b plan can be rolled into a traditional or Roth IRA, tax-free, giving you access to limitless investment options. It can also be transferred to a current employer’s 401k or 403b retirement plan where contributions can continue to be made up to annual federal limits.
 

Traditional or Roth IRA

financesOne of the most popular options for rolling over an old 403b plan is to put the money into a Traditional or Roth IRA account. An IRA account is an independent account that is typically not offered by the employer. Basic IRAs typically have lower interest rates, but your money is completely safe and insured. If you opt to go with a financial advisor and open an IRA that is tied to stocks and bonds, you may earn more at a faster rate, but you also put your money at risk.

A good in-between option is a Premium Market IRA. With this type of IRA, your funds are completely secure, but you earn a higher rate that is tied to the market. It is tax-privileged, earns higher dividends, and your money is insured and safe, so you won’t have to worry about losing money because of the market.

Learn More about Premium Market IRAs

 

403b

Sometimes, rolling over an old 403b means putting the money into a new 403b plan. If a new employer offers a plan with investment options you are comfortable with, then this may be right for you. It is important that you first familiarize yourself with the investment options and potential constraints of the new plan. However, many people enjoy the benefit of growing their nest egg quickly by keeping the bulk of their retirement in a 403b plan. An employer-sponsored 403b plan typically offers low administrative costs, making it an affordable option. There are no tax penalties for rolling money over into a new 403b plan, and you can still make tax-free contributions.
 

401k

If your new employer offers a 401k, then the IRS allows you to roll your old 403b retirement savings into that new account. This is known as a tax-free conversion. There are no tax penalties for this conversion, and you can still make tax-free contributions, subject to annual limits. Many employers also match contributions into a 401k plan, up to a certain percentage, allowing savings to grow quickly. As with the 403b option, the contribution limits are higher, and there is a catch-up provision for people over 50 years old. If you happen to max out your annual contributions, some employer-sponsored 401k plans have provisions that allow participants to make after-tax contributions as well.

Aside from growing your money quickly, a 401k plan offers a certain amount of asset protection, too. First, plan administrators must abide by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, also known as ERISA. This means that they must comply with a set of fiduciary standards that put your best interest first, instead of pushing investments that may maximize profits. Plans are subject to full disclosure of historical performance and administrative fees. Assets are also protected from creditors and can’t be garnished, with a few minor exceptions. Many employer-sponsored 401k plans offer payroll deductions, making it easier to save for retirement.
 
 

The opinions expressed on this page are for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide legal or financial advice. The views expressed are those of the author of the article and may not reflect the views of the credit union.

Be Prepared for Hurricane Season

Be Prepared for Hurricane Season
Preparation for any natural event is key in reducing the amount of damage done. If you have lived along the Gulf Coast, you know how important it is to prepare for hurricane season. We want to share some tips on the essentials needed to be ready for hurricane season. Our hope is that this will help you and your families if/when the time comes.

Gulf Coast Educators Federal Credit Union has a history of being prepared for natural events and providing our members with essential updates. Members can access all the updates online. Additionally, the credit union provides emergency updates on our Facebook Page, Twitter Page, Instagram Page, and online banking or mobile app.

Prepare at Home
If ordered to evacuate or shelter, you should always prepare the necessary goods and items for at least a week without needing to access a grocery or convenience store. These five items are an essential part of the packing list: bottled water, nonperishable foods, batteries, bags of ice, and a first aid kit. I also suggest looking at The National Hurricane Center website to be aware of future events.

Prepare to Leave
When hurricane season arrives, you should always be ready to leave your current home or area. At any moment, there could be mandatory emergency orders to evacuate the premises as soon as possible. And in this case, it is important to be ready. Know where you will go, how you will get there, and what you should bring beforehand.

Prepare for the Aftermath
With hurricanes, it is difficult to predict what exactly may happen as a result. You may lose power for an extended period, or you may experience severe flooding. In any case, it is important to keep all your insurance contracts and documents safe and readily available. Be ready to handle anything that may come your way, especially when it comes to your assets.

The key is to be prepared and ready for anything.

Additional Resources:
• Developing a Family Plan
• Creating a Disaster Supply Kit
• Having a Place to Go
• Having a Pet Plan

Gulf Coast Educators FCU Ranked in Top 100 Best Performing Credit Unions

Gulf Coast Educators FCU Ranked in Top 100 Best Performing Credit Unions

For Immediate Release: April 23, 2021
Caylee Smith, Marketing Director – csmith@gcefcu.org

Pasadena, TX: Gulf Coast Educators Federal Credit Union is pleased to share that we are listed in S&P Global Market Intelligence’s recent annual rankings of the Top 100 Best-Performing Community Banks and Credit Unions for 2020. GCEFCU is ranked seventh on the list and is the top performing credit union in the state of Texas.

Each year, S&P Global Market Intelligence scores every credit union based on five metrics. The scores are then measured against the industry mean and ranked accordingly. The five scoring metrics used are listed below:

  • Member growth
  • Average loans, net of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, per member
  • Net worth as a percentage of total assets
  • Delinquent loans as a percentage of total loans, net of PPP loans
  • Return on average assets

Gulf Coast Educators FCU is proud to be named the best performing credit union in Texas, and one of the Top 100 Credit Unions for 2020. Our management team and board of directors strive to provide top quality and sound service to all of our members. For a complete listing of S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Best-Performing Community Banks and Credit Unions for 2020, click here.

About Gulf Coast Educators FCU: In 1948, eleven Pasadena ISD educators got together and formed what today remains a credit union dedicated to serving the financial needs of school employees in the state of Texas. The credit union offers its member-owners a full line of banking services, but through a cooperative ownership structure. To learn more about the credit union, visit www.gcefcu.org.

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GCEFCU named one of 2021’s Best of the Best

Gulf Coast Educators FCU Designated a “Best of the Best” Credit Union for 2021

 

Pasadena, TX, February 17, 2021: MemberXP, a credit union member experience measurement platform, has named Gulf Coast Educators Federal Credit Union one of their 2021 Best of the Best award winners.

The coveted Best of the Best award is given each year to credit unions that have consistently provided exceptional member service, as reported by their own members. Only the highest-performing credit unions utilizing the MemberXP platform are given this honor. The Best of the Best award is independently granted by MemberXP based on specific and rigorous criteria. Taking into consideration the extreme challenges of delivering extraordinary member service during a nation-wide pandemic and economic crisis, this year’s award winners reflect some of the most agile and responsive credit unions.

MemberXP is a platform that allows credit union members to provide immediate feedback on the service they receive. Serving credit unions in the United States and Canada, MemberXP uses mystery shoppers and member surveys to gauge the overall member experience across multiple delivery channels, then deliver that data on an intuitive dashboard. The platform tracks specific experiences, such as applying for a loan, conducting a transaction — mobile, online or in branch — or opening a new account, and turns qualitative data into quantifiable and actionable information for the credit union.

“We are proud of our employees and how they have worked diligently during this time to ensure our members have a great experience. It is humbling to know that even during unprecedented times, our team is able to continuously deliver top quality service that our members have come to expect from their credit union,” remarked Eric Stegall, Chief Operations Officer of Gulf Coast Educators FCU.

“Throughout the last year, credit unions have once again shown they are willing to go above and beyond to connect and serve their members, no matter the challenges,” said Dave Adams, president and CEO of CU Solutions Group. “Every year the Best of the Best awards turns our attention to the trailblazers in our industry, that are truly dedicated to delivering brand-defining experiences and unparalleled member service dedication.”

About Gulf Coast Educators FCU: In 1948, eleven Pasadena ISD educators got together and formed what today remains a credit union dedicated to serving the financial needs of school employees in the state of Texas. The credit union offers its member-owners a full line of banking services, but through a cooperative ownership structure. To learn more about the credit union, visit www.gcefcu.org.

About CU Solutions Group: Headquartered in Livonia, Mich., CU Solutions Group is an award-winning credit union service organization that offers products and services in the areas of technology, marketing, HR performance and strategic advisory. The organization is home to national credit union-focused brands including Love My Credit Union Rewards, Save to Win, MemberXP, CUBE TV Studios, Compease and Performance Pro. The company has more than 100 investors comprised of credit unions, credit union leagues and credit union system organizations and maintains strategic partnerships with Intuit TurboTax®, GSTV and CU Risk Intelligence. For more information, visit CUSolutionsGroup.com.

About MemberXP: MemberXP provides actionable member research to credit unions via MemberView, its omnichannel voice of member platform and MemberShoppers, its mystery shopping platform. MemberXP serves credit unions across North America and in Canada ranging in asset sizes of $100 million to over $9 billion. Learn more about MemberXP’s Best of the Best Awards at MemberXP.com/best-of-the-best-award/.

For Immediate Release
Caylee Smith, Marketing Director – csmith@gcefcu.org

Filing Your Taxes

Get Your Maximum Refund and Special Savings on TurboTax

turbo tax imageIt is officially tax time – Have you filed your taxes yet? If not, we have a few resources to help you out along the way. Getting your biggest possible tax refund has never been easier, whether you have simple or complex taxes. In addition, as a Gulf Coast Educators FCU member, you can file your taxes with Turbo Tax and receive up to $15 off.

  • Taxes made easy. Just answer questions about your year, anytime and from any device, and TurboTax fills in all the right forms for you.
  • Real experts standing by. With TurboTax Live, get unlimited advice from tax experts as you do your taxes — or have everything done for you, start to finish.
  • Done right, guaranteed. Most importantly, TurboTax guarantees 100% accurate calculations, so you can be confident your taxes are done right.

Gulf Coast Educators FCU works with TurboTax to provide special savings for our valued members. As a result, you can get up to $15 off TurboTax federal products. Click the button below to get started.

Get Started

 

 

 

Disclaimer: Visit http://turbotax.intuit.com/lp/yoy/guarantees.jsp for TurboTax product guarantees and other important information. Limited time offer for TurboTax 2020. Discount applies to TurboTax federal products only. Terms, conditions, features, availability, pricing, fees, service and support options subject to change without notice. Intuit, TurboTax and TurboTax Online, among others, are registered trademarks and/or service marks of Intuit Inc. in the United States and other countries.

GCEFCU’s 2021 Annual Meeting

Gulf Coast Educators Federal Credit Union’s 2021 Annual Meeting

Date & Time:

February 8, 2021 at 6:00 pm
 

Nominating Procedures

At least 120 days prior to each annual meeting the Chairman shall appoint a nominating committee of not fewer than three members. It shall be the duty of the nominating committee to nominate at least one member for each vacancy, including any unexpired term vacancy, for which elections are being held, and to determine that the members nominated are agreeable to the placing of their names in nomination and will accept office if elected. The nominating committee shall file its nominations with the secretary of the credit union at least 90 days prior to the annual meeting, and the secretary shall notify in writing all members eligible to vote at least 75 days prior to the annual meeting that nominations for vacancies may also be made by petition signed by one percent of the members with a minimum of 20 and a maximum of 500.

The election will not be conducted by ballot when there is only one nominee for each position to be filled. There will be no nominations from the floor. A brief statement of qualifications and biographical data in such form as shall be approved by the board of directors will be included for each nominee submitted by the nominating committee with the written notice to all eligible members. Each nominee by petition shall submit a similar statement of qualifications and biographical data with the petition. The closing date to receive the petition is December 23, 2020 at 12:00 a.m. The credit union’s Board Nominating Committee announces the following members as Board Nominees for the upcoming Annual Meeting which will be held on Monday, February 8, 2021: Barry Beck, Stephen Harrell, Michael Clausen, and Rhonda Parmer. The petitions are to be mailed to Gulf Coast Educators Federal Credit Union; 5953 Fairmont Parkway, Pasadena, Texas 77505. To be effective, such nominations shall be accompanied by a signed certificate from the nominee or nominees stating that they are agreeable to nomination and will serve if elected to office. Such nominations shall be filed with the secretary of the credit union at least 40 days prior to the annual meeting and the secretary shall cause such nominations along with those of the nominating committee to be posted in a conspicuous place in each credit union office at least 35 days prior to the annual meeting.

An individual who wishes to be nominated must be a member of Gulf Coast Educators FCU (Owner of an account in his/her own name) in good standing and must be at least eighteen (18) years of age. The petition and application and agreement to serve are available at the Pasadena office.

Election Procedures

All elections shall be determined by plurality vote and shall be by ballot except where there is only one nominee for each position to be filled. Nominations shall not be made from the floor unless sufficient nominations have not been made by the nominating committee or by petition to provide for one nominee for each position to be filled or circumstances prevent the candidacy of the one nominee for a position to be filled. Only those positions without a nominee shall be subject to nominations from the floor. In the event of nominations from the floor, when permitted herein, result in more than one nominee for a position to be filled, and when nominations have been closed, tellers shall be appointed by the president, ballots shall be distributed, the vote shall be taken and tallied by the tellers, and the results announced. When only one member is nominated for each position to be filled, the chair may take a voice vote or declare each nominee elected by general consent or acclamation at the annual meeting.

Board Nominees

Barry Beck – Position 2 for a 3 year term
Stephen Harrell – Position 3 for a 3 year term
Michael Clausen – Position 6 for a 3 year term
Rhonda Parmer – Position 9 for a 3 year term

Nominating Committee

Jerry Dennis – Chairman
Jim Rubach
Andrea Wenke

Speaker Series: Principal Baruti Kafele

Principal Baruti Kafele: America’s “Discomfort Speaker”

We invite you to join us for this free webinar as Principal Kafele will inspire current and future school administrators to look deeply within themselves toward assessing their own practices to a level of “discomfort within their comfort.”

 
About Principal Kafele: A highly-regarded urban educator in New Jersey for over twenty years, Principal Baruti Kafele distinguished himself as a master teacher and a transformational school leader. As an elementary school teacher in East Orange, NJ, he was selected as the East Orange School District and Essex County Public Schools Teacher of the Year, he was a New Jersey State Teacher of the Year finalist, and a recipient of the New Jersey Education Association Award of Excellence.

As a middle and high school principal, Principal Kafele led the turnaround of four different New Jersey urban schools, including “The Mighty” Newark Tech, which went from a low-performing school in need of improvement to national recognition, which included U.S. News and World Report Magazine recognizing it three times as one of America’s best high schools.

One of the most sought-after school leadership experts and education speakers in America, Principal Kafele is impacting America’s schools! He has delivered over two thousand conference and program keynotes, professional development workshops, parenting seminars and student assemblies over his 34 years of public speaking. An expert in the area of “attitude transformation,” Principal Kafele is the leading authority for providing effective classroom and school leadership strategies toward closing what he coined, the “Attitude Gap.”

Learn more about Principal Kafele
 

Books mentioned in webinar:

  • The ASSISTANT Principal 50
  • The ASPIRING Principal 50
  • Is My School a Better School BECAUSE I Lead It?
  • The Principal 50
  • The Teacher 50
  • Closing the Attitude Gap
  • Motivating Black Males

For more upcoming speaker series, click here.

 

Fraud is not Immune to a Virus

scam alertCovid-19 has affected our world and changed the definition of what “normal” is. People around our area, as well as across the country have started to feel the financial effects of this virus.  Gulf Coast Educators is prepared to handle this difficult time and will continue to assist our members in the ongoing weeks.

With businesses all around making difficult decisions to send workers home, or close all together; we understand the financial stress this puts on everyone.  As a lot of things are changing and adjusting around us, the one thing that is immune to this virus and will continue is fraud. Unfortunately, the credit union deals with fraud every day, and this will continue as well. Currently, one of the most frequent types of fraud we encounter is the “Work from Home Scam.” Fraudsters will use apps such as LinkedIn, Monster, Indeed, as well as direct emails and pose as job recruiters wanting you to be personal assistants or shoppers, the best part is that you can do this from your own home. They will send you a check, usually meant for “purchasing supplies” and some extra for yourself. They will ask you to deposit into your account, then wire money back or send some form of gift cards. By the time you do this and send the funds back, your check has been returned and now your account is negative.

With everyone either on “self-quarantine “or not having a job during these times, there is a chance that we will see an increase in this type of fraud. Gulf Coast Educators has an excellent fraud prevention team that is dedicated to not only preventing fraud, but helping our members when their accounts have fallen victim to it as well.  We are constantly training our staff on how to recognize a fraudulent check or scam. Here are some things that can help you identify them as well:

  • The check the scammers will send you will be from out of state and generally overnighted to you at your home.
  • The amount of the check will always be under $5,000 (because they also know the check hold rules for financial institutions) and we have seen them over time be in the range from $2,000 to mid $4,000 range.
  • Like I mentioned above, they will ask you to send funds back somehow, and they will want to have this turnaround be quick as possible.
  • Correspondence will be used in all types of methods, including email and texting.
  • When members have shown us their conversations with scammers in past, we have noticed several grammatical errors that they use.
  • Our front-line staff have been trained to ask questions to you to fight fraud. Scammers are starting to realize this and will instruct you “not to talk to or answer any  questions from credit union employees” when depositing the funds.

These tips are just some of the ways that you can also fight and spot fraud before it happens. Unfortunately, we now live in a society where scammers will try and take advantage of people during extreme hard times and situations. With all the precautions and measures the Coronavirus has made everyone take, fraudsters will use these times of hardship and financial uncertainty to lead you to believe they are trying to help.  In reality, all they will end up doing is causing more stress and burden.

Gulf Coast Educators is always here to help and assist you, with any questions you may have. If you have questions about if a check is real or if you are uncertain if your situation is one that is fraudulent, give us a call or chat with us online and we will make sure and answer your questions. Gulf Coast Educators will remain open through our Contact Center, Website, ITM’s and Drive Thru.

 

 

Post author: Adam Smith, Branch Manager – League City

The opinions expressed on this page are for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide legal or financial advice. The views expressed are those of the author of the article and may not reflect the views of the credit union.