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November 20, 2003 - 13,525 subscribers
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“What You Need to Know About FMLA and Workers’ Compensation” 90-Minute Interactive Audio Conference Monday, November 24 * 2:00 p.m. ET When is an injury covered by both FMLA and workers’ compensation laws? May an employer grant both FMLA and workers’ comp leave at the same time? When may an employer require an employee to return to the job? Get the answers to these questions – as well as your own specific questions – and more at this audio conference!
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A Prudent Fiduciary Response by Retirement Plan Sponsors to the Mutual Fund Trading Scandals
Excerpt: "Aon Investment Consultants have developed advice for plan sponsors regarding the prudent course of action for investments in their retirement plans." (Aon Consulting)
Milwaukee County Pension Board Votes Against Removing Strong Financial Corp.
Excerpt: "Board member Martin argued that moving the county's pension fund out of Strong Financial would send a strong national message of distrust. He said the board should maintain faith in the local company." (The [Milwaukee] Business Journal via bizjournals.com; one-time registration required)
Oregon Fires Putnam
Excerpt: "The Oregon Investment Council on Wednesday fired Putnam Investments as manager of $500 million in state pension funds. The council unanimously endorsed a recommendation by state Treasurer Randall Edwards to drop Putnam ..." ([Salem, Ore.] StatesmanJournal.com)
Chrysler Drops Putnam Funds
Excerpt: "Chrysler recently told its employees to switch out of Putnam funds and on Monday reinvested employee 401(k) funds still with Putnam in other funds that track the S&P 500 Index, The Detroit News reported Thursday." (AP via Ocala [Fla.] Star-Banner)
House Backs Bill to Overhaul Mutual Funds
Excerpt: " Responding to the spate of mutual fund scandals, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Wednesday aimed at deterring trading abuses and fund mismanagement, improving the disclosure of fee information and increasing the independence of fund boards." (New York Times; one-time registration required)
PLANSPONSOR Coverage: Mutual Fund Reform Sails Through House
Excerpt: "[The House bill] would establish a strict monitoring of 4 p.m. trading deadlines with an audit trail-- but that requirement could offer a ray of hope to plan sponsors and participants who would potentially be impacted by a proposal touted by the Investment Company Institute that would impose a 'hard' requirement that all mutual fund transactions be delivered to the mutual fund by 4 p.m." (PLANSPONSOR.com; one-time registration required)
The Guy Who Blew the Whistle on Putnam
Excerpt: "[Peter] Scannell caught onto efforts by outside investors, first from an electrical trades union and later a boilermakers union, to make rapid trades in and out of Putnam funds-- a practice known as market timing. Alarmed, Scannell blew the whistle to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which didn't act, and then to Massachusetts regulators, who did." (USA Today)
IBM Blasts Congress on Cash Balance Plan Regulation Moratorium
11/13/03. Excerpt: "International Business Machines Corp. said that Congress's failure to approve changes in defined-benefit pension laws will lead many companies to tell employees to run their own retirement plans. Randall J. MacDonald, senior vice president human resources, said in a prepared statement: 'Congress's action preventing the issuance of appropriate regulations for employer-insured pension plans puts the future of these plans at great risk.'" (Dow Jones Business News via Yahoo! Finance)
Opinion: What a Good Cash Balance Plan Would Look Like
Excerpt: "If Congress wants to legalize cash balance plans, they should do CASH BALANCE PLANS the RIGHT WAY -- Defined Balance plans could be a great vehicle for small and medium sized businesses!" (Janet Krueger)
Opinion: Why Cash Balance Plans, Implemented as Defined Benefit Plans, Are Inherently Bad
Excerpt: "A pension fund could be qualified under the defined benefit rules as 'fully funded' and still not contain enough cash to pay out all the cash balances if a corporation goes bankrupt-- the adequacy of funding is determined through complex actuarial calculations that are not easily verified or understood." (Janet Krueger)
A Plan to Postpone Pension Financing at United
Excerpt: "United Airlines is devising a plan to postpone about $2 billion of required pension contributions over the next three years, having concluded that doing so is the only way to bring the airline out of bankruptcy." (New York Times; one-time registration required)
Airline Pilots Denounce Pension Delayed-Funding Bill In Congress
Excerpt: "The largest union for airline pilots say Bush administration opposition to the Grassley-Baucus pension fund bill contains 'falsehoods' and say the bill is needed to save the airline industry.... What the Grassley-Baucus bill does is require continued normal pension funding, but allow companies to defer 'catch up' amounts that are required when a plan's funding falls behind." (Pacific Business News via bizjournals.com; one-time registration required)
IRS Hears Comments on Proposed 401(k) and 401(m) Plan Regs
Excerpt: "The IRS heard oral comments from the public on November 12, 2003, regarding proposed regulations dealing with 401(k) and 401(m) issues. The bulk of the comments centered on the calculation and allocation of gap period income on excess contributions and excess aggregate contributions and limitations created by the proposed regs on the ability of employers to use bottom-up leveling to correct testing failures through the use of proposed new formulas." (CCH News & Information Library)
Opinion: Ask Democratic Presidential Candidates About Social Security
Excerpt: "The Hawaii legislature passed a law in 1997 that provides a range of marital benefits and responsibilities to same-sex couples. The Vermont legislature voted in 2000 to allow civil unions between g*y couples. And in a series of laws passed in the last several years, California has extended benefits and responsibilities to same-sex couples nearly equivalent to those enjoyed by married couples." (New York Times; one-time registration required)
Lessons for ERISA Plan Fiduciaries from a District Court Case
Excerpt: "Judge Cote in the opinion takes a law firm to task for not presenting 'a forthright description of the advantages and disadvantages of both the individual action and class action options' as it pursued representation of pension funds in individual actions." (Attorney B. Janell Grenier's BenefitsBlog)
Inherited Retirement Plan Assets-- Part One: Options for Beneficiaries
Excerpt: "On April 17, 2002, the IRS issued final required minimum distribution (RMD) regulations, which drastically simplified the RMD rules, including the post-death distribution options available to the beneficiary of a retirement account. The distribution options available to a beneficiary are determined by several factors. We'll discuss the primary ones." (Denise Appleby on Investopedia.com)
Motivating Retirement Planning: Problems and Solutions (PDF)
By Gary W. Selnow. Excerpt: "Recent research has examined various approaches to promoting retirement investment. One promising strategy, automatic enrollment, taps into an old theory about the functional order of behavior and attitudes. This chapter examines the theory to understand why automatic enrollment has a good chance of overcoming the natural impediments to wise decisions about retirement investments." (Pension Research Council Working Paper)
Private Letter Ruling 200345043 (August 13, 2003) on "privatized" government agency
Excerpt: "The K Corporation(s) is not an agency or instrumentality of the State or a political subdivision thereof. Accordingly, ... we find that the inclusion in Plan X of Community Officers, who are employees of a K Corporation which does not qualify as an agency or instrumentality of the State or a political subdivision of the State, will adversely affect the status of Plan X as a governmental plan under section 414(d) of the Code." (Internal Revenue Service; converted to Web format by Calhoun Law Group, P.C.)
Sale Could Be Worth Average of $100,000 to Golden Rule ESOP Participants
Excerpt: "Employees of Golden Rule Financial Corp. are expected to receive an average of about $100,000 from the family-owned company's sale to UnitedHealth Group. The windfall is the result of an employee stock ownership plan Golden Rule started in 2001 to replace a profit-sharing plan and supplement a 401(k) retirement plan, The Indianapolis Star reported in a story Thursday." (AP via Tallahassee.com)
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
Compromise Offered for Expensing Options
Excerpt: "Lawmakers opposed to requiring stock options to count against a company's bottom line introduced legislation Wednesday that would require only those options given to a company's top five executives to be counted as an expense." (Los Angeles Times; one-time registration required)
FASB Ready to Level Playing Field for Stock Options
Excerpt: "The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) plans to complete its deliberations on the equity-based compensation project this quarter and to issue an Exposure Draft in early 2004 and a final statement later in the year.... So far, the FASB's major tentative decisions include the following: ..." (Watson Wyatt)
G*y Marriage Ruling Seems Airtight, Experts Say
Excerpt: "Some experts believed lawmakers would use that time to craft a civil union law similar to the one in Vermont, the only other state that legally recognizes same-sex couples. In Vermont, civil unions provide couples with many of the benefits of marriage under a different name. The statute's influence effectively ends at Vermont's borders, however, as it is not recognized by the federal government and many states." (Reuters via Yahoo! News)
Massachusetts Governor to Challenge G*y Marriage Ruling
Excerpt: "Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney says he'll push for a constitutional amendment to block g*y couples from getting married ... [L]egal experts and some opponents said the decision-- while emphatically supporting a g*y right to marriage-- is ambiguous and leaves open the possibility of civil unions, similar to those practiced in Vermont, rather than marriage. It also is based on the state Constitution, which could be amended by the voters." (AP via Yahoo! News)
Opinion: the Massachusetts Example
Excerpt: "What if a h*mosexu*l couple from Massachusetts or Vermont tried to force one of the 37 states which have defense of marriage laws to recognize their marriage anyway? These states would also face serious legal hurdles to sustain their laws." (Washington Times)
Communication Is Key to Improving Bottom Line
Excerpt: "Watson Wyatt's new study found that companies with the most effective communication experienced a 26 percent total return to shareholders from 1998 to 2002, compared to a –15 percent return for companies that communicate least effectively." (Watson Wyatt)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
Project Manager II (03-0018415)
for Wachovia Corporation
in NC
Newly Posted Press Releases
(Post Yours!)
The Newport Group Receives Top Ratings in PLANSPONSOR Magazine Annual Survey
(The Newport Group)
NCPERS Opposes the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill
(National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems)
Agency on Pension & Health Plans Has Record $1.4 Billion Enforcement Results
(U.S. Department of Labor)
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