As a pension consultant with more than 20 years of retirement plan experience, Janelle Rango works with private, nonprofit and public agencies.
 
Her focus is on government and church plans, providing knowledgeable and skillful support to the Best Best & Krieger LLP Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation practice team and its clients. She assists with fiduciary, compliance, health care and vendor management matters. Janelle has earned an Accredited Pension Administrator designation from the National Institute of Pension Administrators and has completed the NIPA Error Corrections Certificate Course and the National Tax-Deferred Savings Association’s Retirement Plan Academy Tax-Exempt & Governmental Plan Administration Course.
 
Janelle’s experience includes many aspects of the retirement plan compliance and design process. She has a strong compliance background that includes working on complex plan calculations, preparing IRS and Department of Labor filings and performing quality control review of other plan administrators’ calculations and annual reports. She has knowledge of various types of retirement plans including: 401(k), 403(b), cross tested profit sharing, cash balance pension plans and stand-alone defined benefit plans. She has worked on varying plan sizes from one participant to more than a thousand participants.

• As a compliance lead, she worked with in-house pension administrators and plan consultants on how to correct operational plan errors, mentored other plan administrators and lead in-house training seminars.
• As a sales team member, she reviewed employee census and demographics to help design a plan that would benefit the owner’s personal and tax goals. She worked with financial advisors and provided them with the necessary tools to illustrate to their clients why they need a retirement plan. 
• As a plan consultant, she was the day-to-day contact for employers with any plan issues and terminated participants who needed distribution information. She reviewed the plan operation to ensure it was still the “right” plan for the employer, and make suggestions for plan design improvements. 

Janelle assists with the following:

• General - California Rule and vested rights and trust agreements
• Church Plans - 401(a), lay employees plans, defined benefit pension and define contribution, nonqualified plans, priest pension plans and money purchase pension
• Government Retirement Plan - 401(a), 414(h), 415(m), 457, CalPERS, PEPRA, '37 Act, county plan, pick-ups, cost-sharing, defined benefit pension and defined contribution and deferred compensation
• Private Sector Plans - 401(a), 401(k), 403(b), DFVCP, EPCRS, VCP, VFCP, top hat, defined contribution, defined benefit pension, cash balance, executive deferred compensation, plan correction, tax deferred annuity, multiple employer plan and multiemployer pension
• Plan Administration - 3(38), administrative service agreements, investment advisor, investment, Brown Act and administrative committee plan administrator, California fiduciary rules, group annuity, participant-directed, recordkeeping agreements and stable value fund
• Governmental Welfare Plans - 125, HRA, RHRA, OPEB, PEMHCA, PTO, cafeteria and post-employment benefits, retiree health and vacation
• Taxation - SECURES Act, CARES Act, assignment of income, replacement plan, constructive receipt, hardship distribution, employment status, Social Security, worker classification and independent contractor

*Pension consultants are not licensed attorneys. Under California law, pension consultants are not authorized to provide legal advice.

Education

• California State University, Chico, B.S., business administration, option in human resource management