Quote:
Originally Posted by kzt79
Very interesting! Does that extreme pension generosity continue to this day?
|
I too am very curious about the pension plan for the municipality. It is indeed gold-plated, if not solid gold.
Sticking to the public sector it is fascinating to compare the 3 levels of govt via their respective pension plans. From least generous to most generous:
Bottom of the barrel: Province of NS
The provincial pension plan had a checkered history, with periods of great prosperity in the late 1990s (to the point where there were contribution holidays because the actuaries said the plan was overfunded beyond federal regulation limits) to the dire straits it supposedly encountered after the 2008 economic crisis. Ignoring the advice to never sell in the middle of a downturn, the provincial bean-counters in charge convinced Graham Steele in 2010 that the entire thing could collapse and needed stringent cutbacks.
The result has been a piece of provincial legislation that imposes pretty draconian restrictions on things like indexing, and a benefit package that is very bare-bones. Despite a funding level bouncing around a couple of percentage points either side of 100%, most members receiving a PNS pension have received either zero indexing or some minimal amount less than 1% over the last 10 years. However, those measures do not extend to the Pension Service Corp itself, spun off from govt, which has grown in numbers, works out of posh offices in Purdy's, and whose top management, most of whom are ex-PNS bureaucrats, would be by far the best-paid in the provincial system if they were not technically no longer part of that. The CEO pulls in a cool half-million annually.
Note that this is separately managed from the NS Teacher's Pension Plan, which is and always has been a mess. That has been on life support for many years.
Middle of the Road: Government of Canada Pension Plan
Not too surprisingly, the pension plan for the feds is pretty solid since they have the ability to print money. They receive COLA indexing automatically, have far better benefits than what ex-PNS employees are allowed, do not need to worry about the funding level of the plan, and generally have little reason to be unhappy with it. Like most pension plans including that of the province, it is harmonized with CPP, so that when a pensioner turns 65, the pension amount they receive from the plan is reduced by the amount of the CPP benefit.
The Gold Standard: HRM Pension Plan
The HRM pension plan is very rich indeed, at least for those members receiving benefits. A pension amount upon retirement is based upon a member's best 3 years of average salary (PNS and most other plans uses 5 years, which tends to reduce the amount somewhat), offers full indexing to COLA each year, and unlike most plans is not harmonized with CPP. This means that the pension one receives does not change when you turn 65 and the CPP payments are on top of that, a very unusual practice. COLA is also granted by their Board each year. I am unclear about retiree fringe benefits but would expect them to be largely the same as HRM employees receive. Overall, this is a remarkbly generous plan. How they do it is a mystery given the checkered and expensive history of defined-benefit pensions in the last couple of decades. One suspects their Council-filled Board is not sharp enough to ask many questions and that HRM writes a pretty big cheque to the plan every year to pay for the largesse. However, it is not particularly transparent.
The poster boy for this plan is now-departed HRPD Chief Kinsella, who transferred here, brought his portable pension from his previous police dept career with him, earned big money here for five years, and after transferring his pension from out west into the HRM plan, retired with what is a very rich pension indeed thanks to HRM generosity (or laxness). It is not unheard of for HRM employees like him to actually take significantly more home each month in retirement than they did while employed thanks to the added CPP amount and the reduced payroll deduction amounts. Few other plans have been able to replicate this financial sleight of hand. One would think all other pension managers would be lined up at HRM's door for advice on how they manage to produce such financial magic.
Prev
Linear Mode
