Calgary's Triple Pension Club

Author: 2018/08/08

236 City of Calgary employees set to receive three pensions from the City of Calgary

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) released documents obtained from a freedom of information (FOI) request today from the City of Calgary that show 236 city employees are set to receive three pensions courtesy of taxpayers.

Documents released by the CTF also show the number of employees in the “Triple Pension Club” has been exploding over the past couple decades.

“Most people outside government don’t have a workplace pension,” said CTF Alberta Director Colin Craig. “It’s crazy to think that over 200 city employees are set to receive three pensions from the City of Calgary. Bloated perks like this help explain why council keeps raising taxes.”

Employees in the Triple Pension Club will receive the following:

Local Authorities Pension Plan – A plan that describes itself as “quite generous,” is mandatory for permanent employees and receives roughly 52 per cent of its contributions from taxpayers, 48 per cent by employees.
Supplementary Pension Plan – A generous pension that builds on benefits paid from the Local Authorities Pension Plan. Taxpayers pay 55 per cent of the bill for this pension while employees pay 45 per cent.
Overcap Pension Plan – A generous pension that builds on the other two plans and is 100 per cent paid for by taxpayers.

Other interesting points:

City documents obtained by the CTF suggest that as of 2008, only 20 retired employees were receiving three pensions. Since that time, the Triple Pension Club has exploded and now more than 200 employees are eligible for triple pensions when they retire.
The cost to taxpayers for providing second and third pensions to city employees is about $5.2 million per year.
As of 2017, approximately 979 city employees are eligible to receive double pensions.

The CTF would like to thank former Mayor Rod Sykes and former City of Calgary employee Bruce Morin for their work on investigating the Triple Pension Club at city hall and briefing the CTF on the issue.

To see the FOI response – click here

From Page 38 of the City’s 2017 Pension Presentation

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