Members Speak Out on Pension Issues (OTF Report)
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.
