CAAT Plan Funding Task Force Completes Review.  Recent news posted on the CAAT Pension Plan’s website states that “financial projections now show that the Plan will not be in a position to make ad hoc increases on the portion of pensions based on pre-1992 service beyond 2014.” (http://www.caatpension.on.ca/en/about-us/news/funding-task-force-completes-review)

Do you know how lack of indexing for pre-1992 service could affect your pension?   OCRA has created a pension calculator using Microsoft Excel to demonstrate the impact of de-indexing on your pension. OCRA offered the pension calculator to the CAAT Plan for publication on the Plan’s website or in their newsletter but the Plan declined our offer.

Are there alternatives to the proposed loss of indexing?  OCRA is unaware of the alternatives the pension plan considered before making the decision regarding de-indexing of pre-1992 pensions.  The following are suggestions that some OCRA members believe could promote equitable treatment for all pensioners.

-          discontinue the funding of "bridging". It encourages current employees to retire early and draw pensions when they have the option to continue working.

-          reduce the indexing factor (currently 75%) for all pensioners. With the existing two-tier system, some retirees have indexing guaranteed and some have indexing only if the Plan can afford it. 

What can we do about it?  The pension calculator OCRA has developed will help retirees become knowledgeable regarding their financial status after 2014. You must have Microsoft Excel on your computer to use the calculator. When you receive the calculator from OCRA, simply enter your Date employed, Date retired and your Current 2011 pension.  The program will calculate your pension from 2014-2034 using three indexing scenarios. Since this is a pension matter, you could ask the Plan to verify your calculations.

The calculator is available by request only.  From March 14 to March 17, and after March 27, please send your request  to:  communications@ocraretirees.ca.   From March 18 to March 27 please send your request to: president@ocraretirees.ca

Disclaimer: The OCRA pension calculator has been developed to provide an approximate estimate of the effect of the proposed removal of the indexing factor from the 2015 Pension calculation. Because of the many variables and assumptions inherent in the calculations, OCRA can take no responsibility for the accuracy of individual retiree results and must stress that these must be considered as rough estimates only.

Joan Cunnington

OCRA Communications

communications@ocraretirees.ca