The Pima School Board voted unanimously to adopt the Internal Revenue Service’s model 403b Tax Sheltered Annuity as the district employees’ retirement savings plan at its meeting Wednesday. The district will self-administer the plan.

According to the IRS, the 403b TSA is a tax- deferred retirement plan. That means contributions and investment earnings are not taxed until the owner withdraws the account, presumably when he or she retires. The amount withdrawn is then taxed as income for that year.

Delbert Reidhead from the Modern Woodman and Bill Barney of Life Insurance Company of the Southwest presented information to the board about the 403b and the school’s role in self-administering it. Reidhead said the plan was a way for the district’s employees to put a little extra money away for retirement. Superintendent Joseph Farnsworth told the council the district was forced to change its policy due to new IRS regulations that go into effect Jan. 1. He said schools were given three options: self-administer, join a consortium or hire a third party to administer the 403b.

Farnsworth said by adopting the IRS’ model plan and self-administrating, existing investments by district employees will remain with the same vendors and will not have to be rolled over. He said the only difference would be that requests from employees to borrow from the plan would have to be approved by the district’s business manager, Shalee Davis.

In other board news, Farnsworth gave an update on the elementary school addition construction.

He said the crews were facing a short delay due to having to wait for the town of Pima and the Graham County Electric Co-Op to route the utility lines from the street to the school’s property line.

Farnsworth added that the dirt work should begin this week.