FWIW re the current debate over pensions.....

Hello SFU Faculty.....

This comment on the current pension situation is sent on a strictly FWIW basis.

So, FWIW:

I am an SFU retiree, who left teaching behind six years ago, took the DC Sun Life pension available at the time, and had it invested in a retirement plan [also Sun Life, as it happens, the best of the offered alternatives I canvassed in 2012, but that's another story].....

My question to those who have been agonizing over the choice now facing them is this:

If you have any doubts about the new plan offered, with the 10 % mandatory contribution feature, then, why not just....

Vote "No," i.e vote to remain in the current plan, which has no mandatory contribution, and...
in order to reap the benefits of having an additional monthly contribution not covered by the SFU portion of the current plan, and then simply....
designate some percentage of your monthly salary as an additional pension contribution?

It's your choice to make what the rate deducted will be..... if 10% is too high given your mortgage, etc., then designate something lower, but....do designate some percentage in order to increase your monthly pension contribution above the SFU portion.

Agonizing choice resolved?

If not, why not?

After all, the choice of making or not making that additional contribution, above the SFU minimum, is in your hands, and always has been.

If you do opt to have some percentage deducted, then you just have to exercise the requisite discipline to authorize those additional contributions per month, and stick to that plan.

Moreover, SFU will help you exercise that discipline.... by first, accepting your instructions to make the additional withdrawals from your pay check, and then actually doing that every month.

Foolishly, during my 40 years or so at SFU, I never did what I am now suggesting that you-all do, the faculty who are agonizing over the current choice.

If I had, my retirement income in 2012 would easily have been double of what I currently live on.

In the light of that foolish decision on my part, my nightly prayer is.....

"Thank you, SFU, for having made, for all those years, a monthly contribution to my pension fund... whether I matched it or not [which I never did].... unlike many universities, who do demand matching contributions."

If SFU had not done that, I would now be living pretty much solely on my CPP and OAS, which, while more generous than anything available in the USA, would hardly sustain the luxurious life that I now lead.

"Thank you, SFU retirement fund."

Further questions:

Why did the Faculty Association even bother to present SFU faculty with the current choice, which has turned out to be so agonizing for so many?
The principal feature of the new proposed system seems to be the mandatory 10% deduction....
The stated reason was a fear that faculty members were not putting enough by for their retirement.
Ok.... but wouldn't a better approach have been simply to remind faculty that they already have the option of making a monthly voluntary contribution... and strongly urging everyone to do so, to the tune of whatever percent is feasible to the individual?

Of course, I may be missing something really important about the proposed plan, registered in the recent flurry of emails.

Best wishes,

David Zimmerman