Notice of Critical Status / Pension Funding Notice

[luissaha]

Has anyone taken a look at the changes to the annual funding notice under MPRA? For a calendar year plan, are those changes applicable to this year's notice? The notice looks at the funded status of the plan for the 2014 plan year, but the effective date for the changes to the notice is "the date of the enactment of this Act." The MPRA was "enacted" in 2014, so are the changes effective now? Other sections of the MPRA are effective for the 2014 plan year. Will the DOL be publishing a new model notice?

For the notice of critical status, it did not look like there were any changes to this section of ERISA, even though some different terminology is now being utlilized (i.e., critical and declining status). Am i missing something here? Were there any changes in the critical status notice requirements I missed?

[mtnhiker]

I have not seen any changes yet, I am wondering when the Multi-employer pension plans that may fall into this "new" category (critical and declining) are required to notify their members?

[luissaha]

We have a fund that is in the new "critical and declining status" for the 2015 plan year. The recently released regulations make it clear that the 2014 annual funding notice is not required to reflect any changes due to this new status because that notice applies to the 2014 plan year. For the 2015 plan year, we will have to use the new notice.

But, what about notice of critical status due in 2015? It seems that this notice due in April 2015 must reflect that the plan is critical and declining status. This could create some confusion for participants and employers.

Does anyone have any insight on how to mitigate the confusion? Would it be acceptable not to reference critial and decling status in the 2015 critical status notice and do it next year when the annual funding notice will be updated?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.