State Treasurer Denise L. Nappier in an unusually public move has asked officials at the board running the state-subsidized retirement system for public school educators to immediately address a series of �significant� problems cited in a stinging review by state auditors.

The treasurer, who serves as an ex-officio member of the Teachers� Retirement Board, said Wednesday in a letter to its board chairwoman and director that she wants them to promptly re-institute an ad hoc committee to develop a �plan of action� to resolve the auditors� findings.

Nappier, a Democrat and candidate for re-election whose office sent copies of the letter to reporters, added that she wanted the plan in place prior to the board�s regularly scheduled meeting next month.

Nappier also disclosed a problem not mentioned in the auditors� review, saying the board�s disbursement account funded from another account overseen by the treasurer�s office has been overdrawn �on several occasions.�

She said she had repeatedly notified the board, the state comptroller�s the office, governor�s budget office, and the auditors about the matter and that she had initiated a meeting about it last month.

But she added that while �we were advised that the issue had been resolved,� the account was again overdrawn �just last week.�

The treasurer was responding to a Sept. 11 review of the retirement board, which found that this year it owed more than a half million dollars in lump sum payments to beneficiaries of deceased retirees, whom the auditors said often are not contacted by the board.

Moreover, the auditors said that in one case, approximately $192,000 of accumulated contributions made by a retiree who died in 2009 was still on hand five months ago, and that �no attempts had been made to contact the designated beneficiary who is due this amount.�

�Beneficiaries may not be aware that they have amounts due to them,� the auditors wrote.

The auditors reported that as of April, a total of 83 deceased member cases were under review by the board�s benefit division in which money was owned to beneficiaries.

But they said their review of 11 of those cases disclosed a total of $520,320 in �unrecorded liabilities� and that �by not attempting to contact beneficiaries� the board is unable to meet both its statutory requirement and fiduciary responsibility to its members.

The auditors cited the problem as they criticized the board�s overall management of accounts receivable and payable and recommended that it establish and follow procedures to properly identify, record, monitor, or resolve the accounts.

�The board maintains no cumulative records of amounts owed to and from towns, estates, or beneficiaries of deceased members,� they wrote, apparently because of limited personnel and �lack of management oversight.�

Board officials responded that they �partially� agreed with the auditors� finding about the beneficiary-entitled benefits. While the law requires a beneficiary�s address to be entered, they said, the board stopped requesting addresses years ago because many became invalid prior to the board�s need of them.

The board�s success rate of locating designated beneficiaries exceeds 99 percent, they said, �So we do not feel as though obtaining addresses is critical to our mission.�

But they also said the board again would collect addresses.

Board officials said they agreed with the auditors� finding about account management, adding that the identification of a decedent is a difficult issue for pension systems. Most families report the death of a member, they said, and the board gets death notifications from the federal government as well as a �death identification service provider.�

But they added there are times when individuals are not identified and efforts are underway to reorganize the task under the board�s accounting division.

$53 million due to health fund

Elsewhere in their report covering the last three fiscal years, the auditors lambasted the board over its accounting and reporting of health insurance premiums withheld from monthly pension payments to retirees.

They said the board didn�t transfer to its health fund monies withheld for premiums over a 21-month period that ended in November 2013.

�As of June 30, 2013, over $53 million was due to the health fund,� they wrote. �Furthermore, the board continued to record the transfers in their own records, resulting in a large discrepancy between the board�s records and Core-CT,� the state�s computerized accounting system.

The auditors concluded that because of �a severe lack of management oversight and failure to establish basic internal control procedures� the board was unable to detect errors and omissions in a timely manner.

Board officials said they agreed and would improve and correct its health fund entries into Core-CT.

There were 66,267 non-retired members of the teachers retirement system as of June 30, 2013, including 50,014 who were actively teaching, according to the auditors� report.

In the fiscal 2012-13 year, the Teachers� Retirement Fund received $787.5 million in state actuarial funding, $273.9 million in member contributions, and realized $1.06 billion in investment income.

The board in the same fiscal year had expenditures of $1.6 billion in retirement benefits, $101.4 million in health insurance benefits, and made $14.6 million in contribution refunds.