News and announcements from the AFTRA Health & Retirement Funds.
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New Retirement Plan notice mailed
7/29/2011 1:44:56 PM
Summary ... Retirement Plan participants will soon receive in the mail a notice required by the Pension Relief Act of 2010.
Full story ... A Notice of Application of Special Funding Relief Rules (funding relief notice) was mailed to all Retirement Plan participants in late July. This notice announces that the Trustees of the AFTRA Retirement Plan have decided to apply two of the special funding relief provisions available to pension plans under The Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010 (Pension Relief Act).
The Pension Relief Act is a federal law that revises the minimum funding requirements for pension plans nationwide affected by the downturn of the financial markets in 2008 and 2009. While the new law does not affect plans’ actual funding levels in any way, it gives multiemployer plans additional time to recognize investment losses incurred during 2008 and 2009 due to the extraordinary economic conditions during this time period.
The Retirement Plan is only applying these special funding relief rules for one of the two years which it is available, the Plan Year ended November 30, 2008. In the Plan Year that ended November 30, 2009, the Plan did not incur investment losses.
It is important to note that this funding relief notice does not affect participants’ benefits. It is provided for informational purposes only, and participants are not required to take any action.
Under the Pension Protection Act of 2006, actuaries are required to certify all pension plans into one of three categories based upon funded status. The AFTRA Retirement Plan is currently in the desired “Green Zone” – even without the election of these special funding rules. However, election of the rules will provide cushion to enable the Plan to remain in the Green Zone more easily than if the special rules had not been elected.