When Bob Schultze joined ICMA-RC in early 2015, he was excited by the opportunities and challenges ahead. As CEO of an organization exclusively dedicated to building retirement security for state and local government employees, he could apply his more than 35 years of public service experience in state government.

As director of the Virginia Retirement System, Schultze was acquainted with the issues facing public managers and the hopes and dreams of public sector retirement plan participants. As a client of ICMA-RC, he was impressed by the quality of service that ICMA-RC provided.

Here are edited excerpts from a conversation with Schultze about the challenges facing local government, how ICMA-RC is helping public sector employees with retirement planning, and how participants are preparing themselves for retirement.

Q: What is it about ICMA-RC that appealed to you?

A: ICMA-RC’s mission of serving state and local employees really appealed to me. ICMA-RC doesn’t have to focus on profit, so we can focus on service. Being founded by the public sector for the public sector, we’re committed to it 100 percent day in and day out.

Q: What has changed about local government management?

A: The landscape of the public sector workforce is changing. Today’s public administrators have more complex challenges related to attracting and retaining employees and offering benefits to meet employees’ needs, while containing costs.

Q: What has been the impact of this change?

A: Like employers everywhere, the impact of baby boomers’ retirements over the next 15 years will be transformational in the public sector retirement planning atmosphere. For more than 40 years ICMA-RC has been there for them, and we stand ready to assist them in retirement. We also continue to look for ways to help employees starting out in their careers.

Plan sponsors are more reliant on a robust retirement plan for employees in both late and early career, with more than 80 percent of local governments offering a combination of defined-benefit and defined-contribution plans such as a 457 or 401a supplemental retirement savings.

Q: What changes are affecting the retirement planning of public sector employees?

A: While traditional defined-benefit plans are still the dominant primary plan in state and local governments, because of the wave of pension reform that’s swept across the country spurred by the Great Recession, defined-benefit plans are becoming less generous.

Therefore, defined-contribution plans are increasingly being looked upon to make up the retirement income gap in the future.

Q: How are participants reacting to these changes?

A: ICMA-RC participants have wisely increased contributions in the past few years. Our 457 plan participants, for example, who have contributed to their plan every month between July 2013 and June 2015, increased their contributions by 7.82 percent.

This is remarkable when you consider that state and local government employee compensation generally has been pretty flat since the recession.

Q: What is ICMA-RC doing to help?

A: ICMA-RC is addressing the major concerns shared by the thousands of Americans who are turning 65 each day: Have I saved enough to retire? How long will it last? We help answer these types of questions through our representatives in the field who conduct one-on-one meetings, as well as group seminars and workshops to help public sector employees prepare for retirement.

Our message to participants is to save more, take full advantage of tax-preferred savings plans, maximize your employer match if available, seek help from our representatives, and use our online calculators to estimate how much you’ll need to retire.

In addition, we want participants approaching or in retirement to know that even though they have separated from their employers, they aren’t separated from their retirement plan with ICMA-RC. We treat them the same way in retirement as we treated them while they were actively making contributions to their plan.

Q: What’s the best part of being CEO of ICMA-RC?

A: I recently attended a large industry conference. My name tag, of course, said “ICMA-RC” and I was struck by how often people would see that and pull me aside and say, “I have money with your company. You guys are doing a great job.”

This article is intended for educational purposes only and is not to be construed or relied upon as investment, tax, or legal advice. ICMA Retirement Corporation, 777 North Capitol Street, N.E., Washington, D.C., 20002-4240; 1-800-669-7400; www.icmarc.org.