Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Nanaimo Taxpayers Contribute Over $5 Million/yr.

Pension has $1.37 Billion funding deficit
Nanaimo taxpayers levy jumps $607,122 for 2015

One item on the Nanaimo Financial Statements presented to city council on May 2/16 which didn't seem to get much notice was 'NOTE 19 - Municipal Pension Plan' on page 49 of the report.

This refers to the Municpal Pension Plan which has about 185,000 active members and approximately 80,000 retired members. The active membership includes approximately 37,000 contributors from Local Government.

The most recent actuarial valuation as at Dec. 31/12 indicated a $1,370,000,000.00 funding deficit for basic pension benefits. The next valuation will be as of Dec. 31, 2015 with results available in 2016.

In the year 2015 the employers contribution (taxpayers of Nanaimo) jumped to $5,048,233.00 from the 2014 contribution of $4,441,111.00 which is an astonishing increase of $607,122.00. The employee contribution for 2015 was $4,272,288.00 or $775,945.00 less than the taxpayer contribution to their pension fund.

Sustainable? Affordable? Fair? Equitable?

Those are all current buzz words bandied about by politicians these days which one has to wonder if they can be used in any sentence referring to the gold-plated Municipal Pension Plan. I wonder how much digging it would take to find out what kind of a pension our previous city mangers could expect to draw down when they qualify to collect their pension. I invite any readers of this blog who know what kind of benefits are paid by this plan to pass that information along, Clearly with a $1.37 BILLION deficit in funding it would definitely not seem sustainable at the current rate of contribution.

I asked the city finance director the other day, if he knew what Nanaimo taxpayers would have to kick-in if the decision were made to fully fund this liability. That is not information that is currently available.

For comparison the following is the Nanaimo city taxpayers contribution to the Muncipal Pension Plan since 2010. You will note the sudden jump in 2015.

2015  -  $5,048,233.00  +$607,122.00
2014  -  $4,441,111.00  +$234,889.00
2013  -  $4,206,222.00  +$248,975.00
2012  -  $3,957,247.00  +$221,435.00
2011  -  $3,735,812.00  +$245,888.00
2010  -  $3,489,925.00

During the period from 2010 until 2015 the Nanaimo taxpayers contribution to the Municipal Pension Plan's has increased by $1,558,308.00 annually. Is that sustainable? affordable? fair? equitable?

It would seem that the brain trust looking out for our tax dollars must think it is all of the above, unless of course they really don't care and are only interested in putting as many feathers in their nests as they can pluck from the old goose, which clearly is not paying attention.

allvoices

1 comment:

  1. I was going to comment but I feel intimidated by the recent City lawyer letters sent to three media admins.
    Cliff Marcil

    ReplyDelete

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