Saskatoon Luncheon: A TRIP to Pension Sustainability

Pension sustainability has emerged as one of the most important issues of our time and stakeholders across all groups continue to look for innovative solutions that meet the needs of all parties involved. 

Similar to many organizations with defined benefit plans, the Regina Police Service struggled with the sustainability of its pension plan for many years for many reasons, including: poor investment returns, changing economic environment, increased longevity, and members taking earlier retirement. Recognizing that it needed to change its model, the Regina Police Service undertook the immense challenge of overhauling its pension plan. Through a collaborative effort and shared commitment to identify a solution that worked for all stakeholders (employer, union and regulator), the Regina Police Service introduced changes that would see them close their existing defined benefit plan and implement a new target benefit plan (i.e., Target Retirement Income Plan for the Regina Police Service (TRIP)) for future service.

This presentation is about this journey and will cover: 

• Plan history
• A collaborative approach in getting the “deal”
• Introducing the TRIP
• Lessons Learned and Key Takeaways  

Evan Bray

Evan Bray is in his 20th year as a police officer with the Regina Police Service.  He has worked many areas within the service, but spent most of career on the front lines as a uniformed officer.  Evan has spent 18 of his 20 years involved in police association work, eventually as president of the Regina Police Association.  In this capacity, Evan worked collaboratively with all partners on the pension challenges they faced involving the Regina Police Plan. Evan was appointed as the Chair of the Regina Police Employee's Pension Committee for the duration of the process.

Currently, Evan is a Staff Sergeant with the Regina Police Service working as a Watch Commander.  He is also the President of the Saskatchewan Federation of Police Officers and on the Board of Directors for the Canadian Police Association.  Evan is married and has 2 children, the oldest of whom is currently working towards a degree in Police Studies at the U of R, hoping to work at the Regina Police Service someday as well. 

Troy Milnthorp

Troy Milnthorp is an Associate Partner in Aon Hewitt's Saskatoon office.  As a member of our retirement strategies team, Troy provides pension and actuarial consulting services to clients both locally and across the country.  Troy specializes in the design and implementation of retirement arrangements for organizations and executives. He has a broad knowledge of accounting principles and methods for pension and other benefit plan costs under Canadian and International accounting standards. Troy has extensive experience working with the public sector in Saskatchewan in all different aspects of retirement.   

Troy joined Aon Hewitt in October of 2000, after graduating from the University of Saskatchewan with a Bachelor of Science degree (Honours) majoring in Statistics.  He is a fellow of the Society of Actuaries and Canadian Institute of Actuaries.  He is a frequent speaker on various pension related topics, however, has spent the last few years presenting at conferences on the topic of pension sustainability and solutions to achieve sustainability.