Business Specialist II - Santa Barbara County, CA
Goleta, CA
About the Job
The Santa Barbara County Employees’ Retirement System (SBCERS) is accepting applications to fill one current vacancy for a Department Business Specialist II in the Member Services division located in Goleta, CA.
THE POSITION: Under general direction of the Member Services Team Lead, this role manages a wide range of responsibilities. This position offers opportunities to engage with external entities, including health insurance providers, consultants, and retirement systems with mutual reciprocal members. Your tasks will involve requesting, obtaining, and analyzing a range of employer records to facilitate member retirement account transactions and communicate with partner agencies to implement benefit changes. The ideal incumbent will excel at process improvement and the development of new policies and procedures.
Internally, you will play a crucial role in educating and advising members through meetings and one-on-one consultations on computation and reconciliation processes. You will analyze program requirements and performance, report on your findings, and execute related duties. You will oversee and direct tasks associated with the calculations of service purchases, redeposits, and plan changes, ensuring effective workload prioritization and strict adherence to established procedures and workflows.
THE DEPARTMENT:
The Santa Barbara County Employees’ Retirement System (SBCERS) is a 401(a) Defined Benefit Plan with over $4 billion in assets. SBCERS provides pension benefits for the County of Santa Barbara and 11 additional employers, also called participating employers, and serves over 11,000 retirees, active employees, deferred members, and beneficiaries. The System is led by the Chief Executive Officer and has 20+ full-time positions across five divisions, including Member Services, Information Technology, Accounting, Disability, Investments, and Administration.
IDEAL CANDIDATE will possess:
- Excellent interpersonal skills with a public service focus.
- Ability to exercise discretion and professionalism, including ability to maintain confidentiality.
- Ability to organize and plan work assignments to meet deadlines, at times with limited direction.
- Sound judgement, independent decision-making, and logical reasoning ability.
- Strong technical ability with financial analysis tools like MS Excel and SQL and a willingness to learn new approaches to data management.
- Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with colleagues, other County personnel, and members of the public.
- Excellent teamwork and influence – including collaborating with various stakeholders, serving as a principal lead in innovative strategies and activities, influencing cross functional teams to facilitate process improvements.
- Knowledge of standard accounting internal controls, procedures, and best practices.
- Ability to develop and conduct professional presentations appropriate for a wide variety of audiences.
- Knowledge of and ability to analyze, recommend and implement system(s), policy and procedure changes to meet the business needs of the department.
- High degree of proficiency and subject matter expertise in the area of benefits, human resources, financial accounting, FLSA and Worker’s Compensation eligibility, as well as Plan Sponsor domain knowledge of earnings code utilization.