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Next pageRETIREES' NEWSLETTER
Faculty and Librarian Retirees' Association
University of Windsor
Sixth Issue, Feb/Mar '94
ONE-TIME ADJUSTMENT MEANT TO REMEDY PAST SHORTFALLS IN MINIMUM GUARANTEED PENSIONS
Last Fall, our president, Norm Shklov, a math-stats whizz in his own right, published some startling findings in these pages. He showed that, for years, retirees on the University's Guaranteed Minimum Pension have taken, might we dare say, a bit of a fleecing! See our Fourth Issue, June, 1993, page 7)
Shklov didn't have to use differential calculus; just simple arithmetic. In one column he showed percent increases in consumer prices year by year, using government sources; in the other, percent increases in pensions to our retirees who are on the Minimum Guarantee.
No one was really surprised at what the study showed: that a retiree who had been on the minimum guarantee during the past ten years was now receiving about 44 per cent of the salary at which he or she terminated. The drop was the combined effect of both the initial joint-survivorship reduction and the reduction each year in his or her real purchasing power.
Lost purchasing power resulted from an increase in prices of 56 per cent , matched by an increase in pension of 23% over the period.
But enough! This is not a story of woe. Nice things can happen in life, and surprises do occur!
Last summer the Faculty Association and the University concluded a new agreement. A Joint Committee was asked to review the impact of the Social Contract legislation on the Pension Plan.
Early in the new year, the Committee reported. Among other things, it addressed the problem that Dr. Shklov had highlighted, and came up with a proposal that most of our members will be pleased about, even if not wildly ecstatic.
The proposal is to increase the pensions of Min. G'tee. Members by (1) the increase in the C.P.I. from the date of retirement to July 1, 1993, MINUS (b) the cost-of-living increases previously granted to the member under the plan. The increase could be worthwhile. Don't go on a shopping spree, though - the MAXIMUM increase is 5%!