Free-Photos / Pixabay

Don’t know if you noticed # 12 in today’s (June 6th) Staff News. It pointed to a link that eventually leads to this MGEU memorandum from May 31, which in turn points to a copy of this note sent by email to the Office of the Superintendent, Pension Commission, by Jody Gillis, Chairperson, Superannuation and Insurance Liaison Committee.

That note states,

“The government has communicated that there are no plans for changes to Manitoba’s public sector pension plans.“

So it looks like the government’s proposed target benefit/shared risk plan, which was opposed by the Liaison Committee, will not be applied to our CSSB defined benefits plan after all.

geralt / Pixabay

For those of you still confused about our defined benefits plan and the proposed changes, the MGEU provides a good Q&A page at www.mgeu.ca/uploads/ck/files/02_18_mb_pension_faq_4_final.1.pdf?t=1517867257.

Our own RRC HR micro site at blogs.rrc.ca/hr/information/pension/ also provides some good information, in particular, the CSSB pre-retirement presentation posted at blogs.rrc.ca/hr//srv/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/CSSB-Pre-Retirement-Presentation.pdf.

In short, our Civil Service Superannuation Pension is  a “defined benefit” pension plan. Employees contribute a percentage of earnings to the plan and accrue a pension. Employers also fund a portion of the benefits earned. The pension is determined using a formula that uses service and earnings. Your pension amount does not directly depend on what you contributed.

Finally, the Financial Post article at business.financialpost.com/opinion/why-theres-no-benefit-in-target-benefit-pensions nicely lays out why there’s no benefit in target benefit pensions, and how so-called ‘shared risk’ plans have nothing to do with sharing.