This page is written for Atlantic Health System’s physicians, executives and senior directors, and for anyone with a deferred compensation plan beside the 403(b) who faces a final year in which each plan pays out under its own rules and on its own calendar. Atlantic Health System runs Morristown, Overlook, Chilton, Newton and Hackettstown medical centers and Goryeb Children’s Hospital, and is the largest employer in Morris County in the county’s 2026 major employers survey. We have not read the current plan document or summary plan description, so this page states the federal and New Jersey rules for the plans a tax-exempt employer may offer, and the method for reading your own documents against them. It does not state what Atlantic Health’s plans say.
One of the system pages under Healthcare professionals, which sets out the rules that apply at every North Jersey hospital and links to Hackensack Meridian and RWJBarnabas.
On this page
- If you have a 457(b): it is a promise, and the rules are federal
- If you have a 409A deferred compensation arrangement
- The 403(b), and its New Jersey basis
- The year it all pays out, and the $150,000 cliff
- What this page does not do, and how to read your own documents
- Why the plan document and the employee summary are different things
- The five things to look up before you plan around your plan
- How to get the actual document
- The decisions that turn on this
- What we will publish here
Where the money is
If you have a 457(b): it is a promise, and the rules are federal
Whether Atlantic Health offers a 457(b), and on what terms, is in the plan document. What federal law fixes for the 457(b) of a tax-exempt employer is this. The Internal Revenue Service states that such a plan must be limited to a select group of management or highly compensated employees, and that plan assets are not held in trust for employees but remain the property of the employer, available to its general creditors in litigation or bankruptcy. Federal law allows rollovers from a 457(b) only when the employer is a state or local government, so a tax-exempt employer’s 457(b) cannot be rolled to an IRA, a 401(k) or a 403(b). Amounts are included in income in the year they are paid or made available to you. The age-50 catch-up is not allowed in a non-governmental plan; the special catch-up in the three years before normal retirement age is.
How and when the plan pays after you leave, and any window to change that, are plan terms. Find them in the plan document before the resignation date, not after. A large payment in one year raises that year’s income, and Social Security generally uses the tax return from two years earlier to set Medicare premiums.
If you have a 409A deferred compensation arrangement
If you have a deferred compensation arrangement governed by section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code, the federal rules are the same for every such plan. Deferred amounts can be paid only on a permitted event: a specified time or fixed schedule, separation from service, disability, death, a change in control, or an unforeseeable emergency. The initial election of when and how you are paid must generally be made by the end of the year before the year in which the services are performed. A later change is allowed only if it does not take effect for 12 months, defers the payment at least five years beyond the original date (except for payments on death, disability or an unforeseeable emergency) and, for payments at a specified time, is made at least 12 months before that date. A failure makes vested deferred amounts taxable for the year of the failure, with a 20% additional tax and interest at the underpayment rate plus one percentage point. Because the first election comes before the work is done and later changes are limited, the payment schedule is set years before retirement.
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The 403(b), and its New Jersey basis
The IRS sets the 403(b) contribution limits, the catch-up amounts and the annual additions limit each year and publishes them on its 403(b) contribution limits page. Whether the employer contribution is a match, a non-elective contribution or both, how it vests, and whether you must be employed on the last day of the plan year to receive it are plan terms, and the five questions further down are how to find them.
New Jersey does not follow the federal treatment of 403(b) or 457 contributions. The Division of Taxation states that contributions to plans under section 403(b) and section 457 are not excluded from New Jersey wages, so they are taxed in the year they are made. When you retire, it says, “you will only be taxed on amounts you receive exceeding those contributions.” Keep a record of each year’s contributions.
The year it all pays out, and the $150,000 cliff
For a physician or executive the last twelve months are a sequence of dates, not one retirement date: the last day of the plan year if the employer contribution requires it, the 457(b) election window, the 409A payment date fixed years earlier, and the year the 403(b) withdrawals begin. On a joint return, New Jersey’s pension exclusion is up to $100,000 when total income is $100,000 or less, 50% of retirement income from $100,001 to $125,000, 25% from $125,001 to $150,000, and nothing above $150,000. Every plan that pays in the same year adds to that year’s income. New Jersey does not tax Social Security benefits, and they are not reported on the State return.
Reading your own plan
What this page does not do, and how to read your own documents
What follows is the method. This page does not tell you what the Atlantic Health System plans say, because we have not read the controlling documents, and publishing vesting schedules, match formulas or eligibility rules without them would be guessing dressed up as information. When the plan documents are in hand, this page will state them, cited and dated.
Why the plan document and the employee summary are different things
The benefits portal, the orientation packet and the annual enrollment guide are summaries. The Supreme Court has held that summary documents “do not themselves constitute the terms of the plan.” The plan document holds the terms.
The five things to look up before you plan around your plan
- The vesting schedule for employer contributions. In a plan covered by ERISA, what you contribute yourself is always yours. Employer money vests on the plan’s schedule, so note the date of each step.
- What triggers the employer contribution at all. Whether you must be employed on the last day of the plan year, or have worked a minimum number of hours, to receive that year’s employer contribution. Some plans require both: Hackensack Meridian’s core contribution does.
- Whether the match and any base contribution are separate, and whether each has its own vesting and timing rules.
- How service from a merged or acquired hospital is credited. If you came in through an acquisition, find the provision that says whether your prior years count toward vesting.
- Whether there is a legacy defined benefit pension, frozen or active, from a predecessor institution.
How to get the actual document
For a plan covered by ERISA, federal law requires the plan administrator to furnish a copy of the summary plan description and other plan documents on written request, and to make them available for examination. Request both in writing from Human Resources or the plan administrator, and keep the request.
There is also a public route. Pension and welfare plans file an annual Form 5500 with the Department of Labor, subject to listed exemptions, and filings are searchable on the DOL’s EFAST2 system. The form gives the plan name, plan number, sponsor and administrator, which you can use to address a written request.
The decisions that turn on this
Three decisions turn on plan terms.
- Timing a resignation or retirement date. If the plan has a last-day rule or an hours requirement, the difference between a December and a January departure can be an entire year of employer contributions.
- Deciding whether to roll a 403(b) to an IRA. The rollover page covers that choice. Keep your record of the contributions New Jersey has already taxed.
- Coordinating with a spouse’s plan. If you both work for hospital systems, read the two plans’ vesting and contribution rules side by side.
What we will publish here
When the current Atlantic Health System plan document and summary plan description are obtained, this page will state the vesting schedule, the contribution formula, the eligibility conditions, and the service crediting rules for legacy facilities, each cited to the document and dated. Until then, the honest version of this page is the one you are reading.
Sources for this page: Internal Revenue Service, Non-Governmental 457(b) Deferred Compensation Plans, the rollover chart, and 403(b) contribution limits; 26 U.S.C. 457(a), (e)(1) and (e)(16); 26 U.S.C. 409A, and 26 CFR 1.409A-2 and 1.409A-3; 29 U.S.C. 1024(b) and 1053(a)(1); CIGNA Corp. v. Amara, 563 U.S. 421 (2011); Department of Labor, Form 5500 instructions and EFAST2; Social Security Administration, Medicare premiums; New Jersey Division of Taxation, NJ Income Tax Wages, GIT-1 and 2 (January 2026), and the retirement income exclusion page; Atlantic Health System, Who we are; Morris County Office of Planning and Preservation, Major Employers in Morris County (January to March 2026). No claim is made on this page about the terms of any Atlantic Health System retirement plan. This page is general information and is not advice about your situation.
Several of these choices come with deadlines.
If you are within five years of leaving Atlantic Health, the 457(b) distribution election and the year everything pays out are both decisions with deadlines attached, and both are easier to get right before you file anything. We can cover it in a short conversation, at no charge and with no obligation.
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