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Thinking
of Retirement?
If you are thinking of retiring
this year, you should indicate your intention to your employer by March
31.
You may retire with an unreduced
pension if you meet one of the following criteria:
- You have completed 35 years of
pensionable service;
- You have completed 30 years of
pensionable service and you are at least 55 years of age;
- You have completed 5 years of
pensionable service and you are at least 60 years of age.
You may also retire
with a reduced pension (penalty) if you are between 55 and 60 years of
age and you have at least 5 years of pensionable service.
There is also a
provision for disability pension. To qualify, you must have completed
five or more years of pensionable service and be totally and permanently
disabled. The definition of disability is as follows:
"totally and permanently disabled"
means, in relation to an individual, suffering from a physical or mental
impairment that prevents the individual from engaging in any employment
for which the individual is reasonably suited by virtue of the
individual’s education, training or experience, and that can reasonably
be expected to last for the remainder of the individual’s practical
working life.
If you have completed 35 years of
pensionable service, you can retire at any age without a reduction.
However, I do not believe that there are many teachers presently in the
system who will have 35 years of pensionable service before reaching the
age of 55. You would have had to start teaching before your 20th
birthday to qualify.
Some teachers are under the
misconception that you can retire if your age and service add up to 85.
That is not the case. For example, if you are 53 years of age and you
have 32 years of pensionable service, your age plus service add up to 85
but you still cannot access your pension. You must meet both criteria of
having 30 years of pensionable service and being 55 years of age.
If you have not completed 30 years
of pensionable service and wish to retire between the ages of 55 and 60,
there will be a penalty which is 1/4% a month for every month prior to
age 60 or every month prior to 30 years of service, whichever is the
lesser. In any case, the maximum penalty is 15%.
I am often asked the question "When can I retire with a full pension?"
The term full pension goes back to the days when the maximum years of
pensionable service that you could accumulate was 35 years. That barrier
has been removed and there is no longer a limit to the number of
pensionable years that you can accumulate. Since there is no mandatory
retirement age, you could teach 50 years and receive a 100% pension.
However, I do not see a big line-up of teachers wanting to stay beyond
35 years.
If you are thinking of
retiring and have not attended a pre-retirement seminar, you should
really consider doing so. The seminar provides teachers with a lot of
valuable information. If you have any inquiries regarding pension,
contact Michel Plamondon at PEITF. If you require a pension estimate or
wish to buy back time, contact Ann Louise Desroches at 620-3216 or
aldesroches@gov.pe.ca.
If you are going to retire this
year, enjoy your retirement.
Federation Fees, How Do We Compare?
Michel Plamondon
(PEITF Newsletter Article, December 2007)
All teachers know
that Federation’s fees are deducted from their pay cheque but do not
always realize how it is calculated and how it compares to other
organizations.
This article will
provide you with this information. Organizations, unions, federations
use various methods to collect fees from their members. Two prevalent
methods are employed. Some organizations choose a fixed amount where all
members pay the same amount. No matter their level of income, all
members pay the same contribution. Other organizations pay a percentage
of their income where the fees paid increase as income increases. In
some cases, a combination of these two methods is used. Arguments can be
made justifying using one method over the other, but in the end each
organization will make a decision based on their own philosophy. Of the
16 organizations surveyed, eight use the percentage method, seven use
the fixed fee method and one uses a combination of both.
How does PEITF
compare with the rest of the country? It is easy to compare with other
organizations who use a percentage but it is a little more difficult to
compare with those organizations who use a fixed fee. The percentage
charged by the organizations who use this method is as follows:
Newfoundland and Labrador 1.25%, PEITF and Yukon 1.3%, Northwest
Territories 1.4%, British Columbia 1.45%, Elementary Teachers of Ontario
1.6%, Enseignants francophones de l’Ontario 1.5% plus a surcharge of
0.2%, Nunavut 1.7%.
The yearly fee
paid by teachers in organizations using a fixed amount is as follows:
Alberta $1,002, Catholic Teachers’ of Ontario $950, Manitoba $848,
Francophone Teachers of New Brunswick $730, Nova Scotia $640, Anglophone
Teachers of New Brunswick $600, QPAT (Quebec) $345.
Finally,
Saskatchewan has a fixed fee of $673 a year plus .05% of salary.
A beginning
teacher on PEI with Certificate V would pay $566.18 a year while a
teacher with Certificate VI at the top of the scale would pay $907.33.
From these
figures, it appears that PEI is in the bottom half in Canada as far as
fees are concerned.
It should be noted
that the present fee of 1.3% was put into place in 1986 in order to
establish the full-time presidency. Before 1986, the President was a
volunteer full-time teacher and the fee paid was 1.2% of salary.
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