Police and city agree on new pension plan

REGINA – After four years of negotiations, the Regina Police Service and the City of Regina have come to an agreement for a new pension plan for more than 550 employees.

The RPS and the city have agreed on what’s called a target benefit plan where both parties have fixed contribution rates but some benefits will fluctuate with the market. The new deal begins on July 1.

“So (currently) it doesn’t matter what happens in the markets, if there’s an increase in the cost of living, our members get that,” said Staff Sgt. Evan Bray. “In the new plan, you only get that cost of living increase when you have a surplus in the plan.”

One of the biggest changes is that instead of retiring following 25 years of service, employees have to wait until their age plus their service years add up to 80.

“But at the same time, if you did want to leave at 25 years, there is the provision to do it in the new plan but you’re going to pay a penalty,” said Bray.

Regina is also in the middle of pension negotiations with its more than 6,500 city workers, non-teaching school workers, health region employees and library staff.

“What’s different with the City of Regina one is that there’s many more employees and employer groups,” said Mayor Michael Fougere. “So it’s much more a difficult process to go through. But this could be a model.”

With other organizations across Canada struggling with similar pension issues, others are looking to see how the RPS model will work.

“We had people from Alberta Special Forces, inquiries from Winnipeg, elsewhere in Saskatchewan, and elsewhere across the country as well,” said Bray. “They’re wanting to know what we did (and) how we did it.”

Under the agreement, the City of Regina has agreed to take over all funding requirements for the old plan, which works out to about $63-million.

The new pension plan does not impact employees who have already retired.