On January 22, 2018, the Office of Administrative law approved changes to Title 5, Section 27000 of the California Code of Regulations, which were not substantive changes pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act and Title 1, Section 100 of the California Code of Regulations.

CalSTRS’ F496 File and Voluntary Deduction File specification documents describe the data employers must provide and the format employers must use to report to the system. In 2012, both documents were incorporated in their entirety into CalSTRS regulations. However, many provisions of the file specification documents, such as troubleshooting steps or rules that prohibit invalid data from being accepted, do not constitute a regulation, so their presence in the California Code of Regulations is unnecessary.

Under this regulatory action, only the portions of the F496 File Specification and VDF Specification that are regulations subject to the Administrative Procedure Act remain incorporated by reference. By refining the content of our regulations, CalSTRS’ objective is to improve understanding of what is and is not a regulation within each document and to improve the ease of review by the affected public should substantive changes to reporting obligations by employers be made in the future.

This action does not make any changes to employer reporting or the file specification documents themselves. Instead, the amendments lay the groundwork for CalSTRS to clearly and concisely communicate future changes to employer reporting—new fields, changes to field lengths and other substantive reporting changes—to the affected public.

The file specification documents can be found by employers on the Secure Employer Website.

For accessible versions of files on this page, contact ADACoordinator@CalSTRS.com.