The City of Weyburn closed out their pension plan and will move their assets to the Municipal Employees Pension Plan (MEPP) at a cost of $8.5 million.
City council was updated on the pension plan’s move on Monday evening, which took effect on Jan. 1.
A total of 104 city employees are currently active, plus the plan has 52 pensioners or survivors, and nine deferred members, which refers to individuals who no longer work for the City but still have a city pension.
The discussions to move the city’s pension plan began in 2007, when the pension provider approached the city with a notice of increasing deficit payments.
The combination of slowed asset growth and faster liability growth resulted in increased contribution requirements for the plan’s members, and decreased plan benefits.
Discussions took place over the next several years, and in March 2016, council moved to wind down the city’s pension plan with the goal to transfer all of the employees and pensioners to go under MEPP.
As city manager Mathew Warren explained, the city’s employees made deficit payments totaling $3.6 million between 2010 and 2018.
The value of the plan’s assets were $22,991,211, and the liabilities totaled $31,485,470, so the city ended up with unfunded liabilities of $8,494,259, which had to be paid out in order to make the move to MEPP.
Warren said the move to MEPP will save the city making deficit payments estimated at nearly $500,000 a year.
While this move is costing the city $8.5 million, Coun. Dick Michel noted that when discussions first started about doing this, the cost was going to be closer to $12 million, and he said this is a positive move for the taxpayers and for the city’s employees.
Mayor Marcel Roy pointed out this will save $500,000 from the city’s budget, and combined with the increase expected in the municipal revenue-sharing grant announced by the province, Weyburn should see an extra $7-800,000 for this year’s budget.
“This is a big step for the City of Weyburn. There was a lot of risk for city employees and for the pensioners,” said Coun. Mel Van Betuw.
MEPP is a pension plan administered by the Public Employees Benefit Agency, and it provides retirement benefits to the employees of school divisions, urban and rural municipalities, regional colleges, regional public libraries and other local authorities in Saskatchewan.
• In other council business, council approved a tender for four vehicles for the City of Weyburn, after bids were received from the three local vehicle dealerships.
The bids from Great Plains Ford was approved for a crew cab half-ton truck worth $39,955, a one-ton cab and chassis worth $43,546, and for a mid-sized SUV worth $28,462, while Barber Motors was awarded a bid for a crew cab half-ton truck, worth $42,278.
The cost for the four trucks totaled $154,242, with another $25,000 to be spent on the cab and chassis to equip the truck with a service body and welding unit. The total will still come well under the estimated budget amount of $195,000 for the vehicles.
Some of the vehicles being replaced will be sold by the City at an upcoming vehicle auction, or by an online auction, with the welding truck replacing a model from 1986.
• Council was told that the new city reservoir and distribution upgrade should be completed by mid-March, as per the schedule submitted by Westridge. The water treatment plant was successfully shut down on Jan. 23 for testing of the old and new electric installation, and there was no interruption of water supply to the city.
The water plant is running on manual mode, as the new upgrades have replaced many components, so staff has to adjust everything manually at the plant.
