Job Description

*Administratively updated on July 2, 2026 to clarify Minimum Qualifications*

Who We Are

The San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System (SFERS) is dedicated to securing, protecting, and prudently investing the pension trust assets, administering mandated benefits programs, and providing promised benefits to the active and retired members of the City and County of San Francisco.

Established in 1889 as a fund for families and orphans of firefighters and police officers, today the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System serves more than 75,000 active, vested, and retired employees of the City and County of San Francisco and their survivors.

What We Do

The Retirement Services Division plays a crucial role in administering retirement benefits for both active and retired employees as well as their beneficiaries. Staff provide comprehensive retirement counseling services to guide individuals through their retirement planning journey and process various benefit applications, including service and disability retirements, survivor benefits, vesting allowances, refunds, reciprocity, and the purchase of service credit. The Retirement Services Division also manages the disbursement of approximately $150 million in monthly benefit payments to around 32,100 retirees and beneficiaries, ensuring timely and accurate payments.

Department: San Francisco Employees' Retirement System (SFERS)
Job class: 1814 Benefits Supervisor
Pay range: $135,356 to $164,554 annually
Role type: Permanent Civil Service What does this mean?
Hours: Mon - Fri, 8:00am - 5:00pm (limited flexibility)
Exam type: Supplemental Questionnaire
Rule: Rule of 3 scores
List type: Position Based Test

Applications AND Completed Supplemental Questionnaire due by 5:00pm, Monday, August 3, 2026.

What We’re Looking For

Under the general direction of the Member Services Manager, the Benefits Supervisor supervises the day-to-day operations of the Member Services Unit and provides second-line supervision to analytical and technical staff responsible for administering retirement benefits and delivering member services. The incumbent oversees retirement counseling, retirement application processing, benefit calculations, member correspondence, and customer service operations; ensures compliance with applicable laws, regulations, Board policies, and departmental procedures; develops and implements operational improvements to enhance service delivery and efficiency; and serves as a technical resource and advisor on complex retirement benefit matters. The Benefits Supervisor promotes a collaborative, high-performing work environment while ensuring the delivery of accurate, timely, and responsive service to SFERS members, beneficiaries, retirees, and participating employers. Examples of primary duties may include:

• Train, evaluate, supervise and direct a major unit of professional analysts and technicians in an assigned employee benefits program.
• Review Charter, Federal, State and City laws and regulations and pending legislation to determine its applicability to San Francisco Employees' Retirement System.
• Document existing business processes and procedures. Assist management in developing and implementing new operational procedures to accommodate legislative changes.
• Assist management in monitoring operational procedures to enhance workflow and program effectiveness. Identify and resolve issues or problems. Research to determine causes of issues or problems and recommend solutions. Communicate outcomes to members verbally and in writing.
• Coordinate with Operations, Benefits, Information System, Accounting, Actuary and Business Services Division to gather and analyze data, to make payments and to manage pension administration; participate in information systems design, development, testing and implementation. Identify and resolve problems including performing research to determine causes of issues and recommending solutions. Communicate outcomes to members verbally and in writing.
• Prepare and present oral presentations regarding the San Francisco Employees' Retirement System. Develop content for member educational webinars and videos.
• Manage complex special projects.
• Contact City departments, employees, employee's representatives, other government agencies and various private entities to furnish and/or obtain information on complex pension related matters.
• Manage and monitor business processes and workflow to ensure quality and timeliness of work product and resulting service to members. Identify operational procedures that can be improved and bring those to the attention of management.
• Collect and analyze data in order to develop and present detailed reports to management on various operational matters including statistical reports.

Qualifications

Qualifications

Education

Possession of a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university.

Experience

Four (4) years of experience administering employee benefit programs.

This experience must include two (2) or more years of senior level work in the administration of employee pension and death benefits programs, including knowledge of applicable federal/state/City laws and associated legal terminology.

Substitution

Additional experience may be substituted for education on a year-for-year basis.

How to stand out

Desirable Qualifications:

The stated desirable qualifications may be used to identify job finalists at the end of the selection process when candidates are referred for hiring.

• The Member Services Unit Supervisor should have demonstrated experience working with the public/pension system members to answer individualized pension related questions, in addition to being able to supervise staff processing retirement applications and pension benefits in a high-pressure high-volume work environment. The Member Services Supervisor must be able to prioritize multiple competing work priorities.
• Minimum of four (4) years verifiable experience with employee retirement benefit programs involving analysis of data for counseling and benefit calculations with a public sector retirement and/or pension plan or experience with a defined benefit plan or defined contribution plan.
• Minimum of two (2) years verifiable supervisory experience in benefit administration or in a customer service focused environment.
• Working knowledge of PeopleSoft.
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office products, including Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Teams. Demonstrated proficiency in using Excel for complex calculations and tracking preferred.
• Strong oral and written communication skills.

Verification

Applicants may be required to submit verification of qualifying education and experience at any point during the recruitment and selection process. If education verification is required, information on how to verify education requirements, including verifying foreign education credits or degree equivalency, can be found athttps://sfdhr.org/how-verify-education-requirements.

Note Falsifying one’s education, training, or work experience or attempted deception on the application may result in disqualification for this and future job opportunities with the City and County of San Francisco.

All work experience, education, training, and other information substantiating how you meet the minimum qualifications must be included on your application by the filing deadline. Information submitted after the filing deadline will not be considered in determining whether you meet the minimum qualifications.

Resumes will not be accepted in lieu of a completed City and County of San Francisco application.

Applications completed improperly may be cause for ineligibility, disqualification, or may lead to lower scores.

Selection Procedures

Applications AND Completed Supplemental Questionnaire due by 5:00pm, Monday, August 3, 2026. Applications will be screened for relevant qualifying experience. Additional screening mechanisms may be implemented to determine candidates’ qualifications.

Supplemental Questionnaire Evaluation (Weight: 100%)

Applicants must complete the Supplemental Questionnaire by clicking on this link: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/g/Fz77HhXL0k by 5:00pm, Monday, August 3, 2026 The Supplemental Questionnaire Evaluation is designed to measure knowledge, skills and/or abilities in job-related areas which may include but not be limited to: knowledge of administration of benefit plans, knowledge of management and planning techniques; knowledge of investigative techniques and benefits counseling techniques; ability to perform accurate benefits calculations; ability to research and analyze data; human relation ability; written communication ability; supervisory ability analytical ability; ability to apply the principles and methods for employee pension benefits; and ability to work on sensitive and confidential matters.

A passing score must be achieved on the Supplemental Questionnaire Evaluation to be ranked on the eligible list.

Applicants meeting the minimum qualifications are not guaranteed to advance through all the steps in the selection process. The department may administer additional selection procedures upon certification to make a final hiring decision.

Candidates' scores on this examination may also be applied to other announcements involving other job titles, when directed by the Human Resources Director.

Upon approval of the Human Resource Director (see Civil Service Rule 111A.26.5), the eligible list resulting from this announcement may be used by other departments that also use this classification or a similar classification. To find other Departments which use this classification, please see www.sfdhr.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx-documentlD=21246 Search that document by title or job code to see which departments use the classification

Additional Information

What else should I know?

Eligible List/Score Report

A confidential eligible list of applicant names that have passed the civil service examination process will be created and used for certification purposes only. An examination score report will be established, so applicants can view the ranks, final scores and number of eligible candidates. Applicant information, including names of applicants on the eligible list, shall not be made public unless required by law. However, an eligible list shall be made available for public inspection, upon request, once the eligible list is exhausted or expired and referrals are resolved. The eligible list/score report resulting from this civil service examination process is subject to change after adoption (e.g., as a result of appeals), as directed by the Human Resources Director or the Civil Service Commission.

The duration of the eligible list resulting from this examination process will be six months and may be extended with the approval of the Human Resources Director.

Certification

The certification rule for the eligible list resulting from this examination will be Rule of Three. Additional selection processes may be conducted by the hiring department prior to making final hiring decisions.

Terms of Announcement and Appeal Rights

Applicants must be guided solely by the provisions of this announcement, including requirements, time periods and other particulars, except when superseded by federal, state or local laws, rules or regulations. Clerical errors may be corrected by the posting the correction on the Department of Human Resources website at careers.sf.gov.

The terms of this announcement may be appealed under Civil Service Rule 111A.35.1. The standard for the review of such appeals is “abuse of discretion” or “no rational basis” for establishing the position description, the minimum qualifications and/or the certification rule. Appeals must include a written statement of the item(s) being contested and the specific reason(s) why the cited item(s) constitute(s) abuse of discretion by the Human Resources Director. Appeals must be submitted directly to the Executive Officer of the Civil Service Commission within five business days of the announcement issuance date.

Additional Information Regarding Employment with the City and County of San Francisco:

• Information About The Hiring Process
• Conviction History
• Employee Benefits Overview
• Equal Employment Opportunity
• Disaster Service Worker
• ADA Accommodation
• Seniority Credit in Promotional Exams
• Veterans Preference
• Right to Work
• Copies of Application Documents
• Diversity Statement

How to Apply

Applications AND Completed Supplemental Questionnaire due by 5:00pm, Monday, August 3, 2026. Applications for City and County of San Francisco jobs are only accepted through an online process.

Visit careers.sf.gov and begin the application process.

• Select the “Apply Now” button and follow instructions on the screen.

Applicants may be contacted by email about this recruitment and, therefore, it is their responsibility to ensure that their registered email address is accurate and kept up-to-date. Also, applicants must ensure that email from CCSF is not blocked on their computer by a spam filter. To prevent blocking, applicants should set up their email to accept CCSF mail from the following addresses (@sfgov.org, @sfdpw.org, @sfport.com, @flysfo.com, @sfwater.org, @sfdph.org, @asianart.org, @sfmta.com, @sfpl.org, @dcyf.org, @first5sf.org, @famsf.org, @ccsf.edu, @smartalerts.info, and @smartrecruiters.com).

Applicants will receive a confirmation email that their online application has been received in response to every announcement for which they file. Applicants should retain this confirmation email for their records. Failure to receive this email means that the online application was not submitted or received

If you have any questions regarding this recruitment or application process, please contact the exam analyst, James Galileo, at James.Galileo@sfgov.org.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.