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ARTICLE

Members Speak Out on Pension Issues (OTF Report)

Hilda Watkins

Delegates  to  the  ETFO  Annual  Meeting  reelected me to the position of OTF table officer. After serving for a year as OTF president, it is my pleasure to be able to continue to inform you about  issues pertinent to the 155,000 teachers employed in Ontario’s publicly funded schools.

In April, Pollara conducted a survey of approximately 3,000 members of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. The  survey participants reflected the  demographics of  contributing  plan  mem- bers. You may recall that in filing the 2005 pension valuation, the parties – OTF, the government, and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) – also agreed to commission a member survey and to study the assumptions used by the OTPP in valuing the plan.

The survey results told us that members sup- port  the  OTF executive position  that  benefits should not be  reduced. Further, members told us that they are willing to contribute more to their pension plan to maintain this current level of benefits. Members were only willing to choose a benefit reduction when forced to rank three: changing the 85 factor to a 90 factor; reducing the amount of the monthly pension cheque by 10 percent; or making pension inflation protection variable. When compelled to make a choice, the greatest number of members chose the final option. This trend is also fairly consistent across career  groupings.  The  one  exception  is  those already eligible for an unreduced pension; they rarely chose this option.

The   preparation  of   a  non-biased   survey required  numerous  hours  of  discussion  with the three parties as well as several focus groups to  ensure  the  use  of  terminology  that  would resonate with the membership. The hard work of your local presidents, the OTF executive, the OTF pension committee, and OTF staff in pre- paring the membership for this survey bore fruit in the results.

We were also heartened to learn that teachers had  a  greater understanding of  their  pension plan  than  they  showed  in  earlier  testing,  an improvement we attribute to the pension edu- cation  program, Looking Ahead.  This valuable resource provides a wealth of pension informa- tion for members in all stages of their careers. Indeed, portions of the resource would serve as an excellent introduction of the plan for our new teachers. For your convenience the resource can still be found at otffeo.on.ca.

We want  to  express our  appreciation to  all those who participated in the telephone survey. Your input will inform future decisions that OTF makes about your pension.

The  panel  of  world-class  experts  commissioned to review the actuarial assumptions used by the plan continued its work throughout the summer.  Several  of  their  discussions  revolved around  the  actuarial changes  in  the  mortality tables. At the time of writing, we were expecting to receive their report imminently. I will have more on this report in my next column.

At the  annual  board  of  governors’ meeting in  August,  governors  paid  tribute  to  Claude Lamoureux, the president and CEO of the plan. The standing ovation he received recognized the plan’s  performance under  his  leadership since it was established in 1989. When he retires later this year he will be replaced by Jim Leech, senior vice-president of Teachers’ Private Capital.