Auditor General's report illustrates need to halt changes to public service pensions

A February 2014 report of the Auditor General reinforces and supports the argument of public sector unions that changes to public employee pension plans are premature and have not been properly analyzed.

The approach taken by the PC Government has lacked consultation and testing of outcomes as recommended by the Office of the Auditor-General in its report.  The government has clearly failed to make the case that its proposed changes are needed.

United Nurses of Alberta and the Labour Coalition on Pensions continues to urge Finance Minister Doug Horner to consider the recommendations by the Auditor General and ensure that proper consultation and outcomes testing has taken place before major changes to the plans are introduced.

Unions have consistently recommended changes to governance of the plans that would improve stakeholder involvement in plan design changes to manage risks, as recommended by the Auditor General’s report, and that these changes have not been implemented by the government

The Coalition notes specifically that the Auditor General concluded on page 31 of his report that it is “unclear whether the proposed reforms significantly increase the likelihood of the plans’ sustainability.”

Among the points made by the Auditor General’s report are the following:

-    The Government of Alberta has not properly engaged plan stakeholders – the employees and employers who pay for the plans

-    The government has not fully considered effects of the changes it is pushing through

-    The government has not planned how any changes would actually be implemented

-    The “hard cap” on pension contributions proposed by the government can in fact harm the plans’ sustainability

The Auditor General’s report provides clear evidence the government’s rushed process to major pension plan changes needs to be halted until appropriate consultation with stakeholders and rigorous analysis of the impacts of the government’s proposals has been completed, a process that cannot happen in a few weeks.

Approximately 300,000 Albertans, about a third of them retirees, and their family members are direct stakeholders in Alberta’s public sector pension plans. They are front-line workers in Alberta’s hospitals, schools, cities and towns.

Most of the 30,000 Registered Nurses, Registered Psychiatric Nurses and allied health workers represented by United Nurses of Alberta are members of the Local Authorities Pension Plan.

Visit TruthAboutAlbertaPensions.ca to contact your MLA about the proposed changes to the Local Authorities Pension Plan.