TSP prepares for increased activity due to stock market plunge

Officials overseeing the Thrift Savings Plan said Tuesday that they are prepared to handle an influx of calls and other activity resulting from market volatility.

At a monthly meeting of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, officials said they have increased call center support for participants worried about their plan assets. Stock markets worldwide took a nosedive on Monday, while U.S. markets were closed for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 index lost 1.1 percent, ending the day at a more than 16-month low.

"Obviously the markets are going through some sizable amount of volatility both here and around the world," said Andrew Saul, chairman of the board. "Long-term investing has proved a very sensible thing, but on the other hand, this is a free country, and everyone has to make their own decisions as to how they want to handle their own finances."

The news comes as officials are working to limit the number of interfund transfers participants can conduct to two each month. They plan to publish final regulations on transfers in the Federal Register in February. The rules will take effect in late March or April.

Still, trading was down slightly in December, when 133,550 interfund transfers were processed, compared with 188,623 in November. Officials chalked up the decrease to media reports on the potential impact of interfund transfers on the overall cost of running the plan.

"People have read that this is an issue of concern," said Gregory Long, TSP executive director. "Some have calmed down; others haven't."

Meanwhile, officials noted that for 2007, the administrative costs to TSP participants were only one basis point, or 1 cent for every $100 invested. Last year's low cost was largely due to a significant amount of money being forfeited to the plan to cover employees who were placed in the wrong retirement system.

The forfeitures are a result of the 2000 Federal Erroneous Retirement Coverage Corrections Act, which sought to provide relief to employees who spent at least three years in the wrong retirement plan after the Federal Employees Retirement System was introduced in 1987. Once the law is phased out, officials said, administrative costs likely will increase to what they were in recent years. In 2006, TSP participants paid three basis points, still far below comparable private sector plans, which often cost 50 to 80 basis points to run.

"It's really how many angels can dance on the head of a pin because we're talking about such small numbers," Long said. "The primary point is to say that the one basis point figure may go up."

TSP Legislative Director Thomas Trabucco said officials recently met with members of Congress to make minor changes to legislation that would allow automatic employee enrollment in the plan and change the default fund for indecisive investors to the appropriate life-cycle fund. Trabucco said the legislation should be ready for introduction soon.

Lawmakers have expressed concern over the cost implications of the automatic enrollment proposal, since it would result in more federal employees deferring some of their salary from their taxable income. While a Congressional Budget Office estimate cannot be made until the legislation is introduced, Trabucco acknowledged that an unofficial accounting indicates the proposal could deprive the U.S. Treasury of hundreds of millions in tax dollars.

The legislative proposals will be discussed further at TSP's next board meeting, set for Feb. 19. Officials also plan to provide an update on the potential for creating customizable user identifications to replace the 13-digit account numbers participants have been using since October 2007.

"The 13-digit account number is very challenging for folks to remember," said Mark Hagerty, TSP chief information officer. "There's lots of work required to get the [customizable identification] up and operational, but it should make the site more user-friendly."