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October 17, 2003 - 13,400 subscribers
Today's sponsor: APSCREEN, Employee Locator
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(Please visit our sponsors. We try to make sure their products and services will be of interest to you. Thanks! --Editor)
2003 Investment Consultant Survey
Excerpt: "Our first annual Investment Consultant Survey is an evaluation by plan sponsor clients of the specific products and services offered by consultants. Also included are comments from plans about the perceived strengths and weaknesses of their consultant relationships." (PLANSPONSOR.com; one-time registration required)
Summary of Important Issues in Tittle v. Enron Court Decision
Excerpt: "Amy Moore of Covington and Burling and ERIC has produced for ERIC members a chart summarizing the significant issues addressed in a recent court decision to allow employees of Enron to sue the officers, directors and plan administrators for breach of fiduciary liability regarding the administration of the company's 401(k) retirement plans." (Covington & Burling for the ERISA Industry Committee)
Investigation of General Mills' Accounting Hits Hard; 10% Pension Earnings Assumption Questioned
Excerpt: "The Feb. 27 letter also questioned the company's assumption its pension plan would earn more than 10% a year, which is higher than the 9% figure the SEC has generally used as a threshold ..." (USA Today)
Overview: Retirement Plan Limits for 2004 (PDF)
Excerpt: "Employers that have not done so may have to amend the retirement plans to implement the limits available under EGTRRA.... Communications materials that specify the various plan limits should be reviewed for accuracy and revised, if necessary, before they are distributed to plan participants." (Milliman USA)
Overview: 2004 Social Security and Medicare Program Adjustments (PDF)
2 pages. Excerpt: "Employers that sponsor benefit plans coordinated with Social Security or Medicare benefits should review their plans in light of the adjustments that have been announced for 2004. Information given to employees and plan participants should be reviewed and revised as necessary. Payroll systems also may have to be adjusted accordingly." (Milliman USA)
Can an Employee Who Is Completely Disabled Continue to Make Elective Deferrals?
Excerpt: "QUESTION: We have a long-time employee who is completely disabled but we are keeping her on full-time pay. Since the pay will be reported on IRS Form W-2, can she continue to make elective deferrals and receive matching contributions under our 401(k) plan? ANSWER: Generally, no." (EBIA (Question of the Week))
EGTRRA: a Reason for Teachers to Dance
Excerpt: "Thanks to EGTRRA, teachers can sock away $24,000 a year in defined-contribution plans in 2003. Those eligible for catch-up contributions can sock away even more. Maybe teachers should celebrate with a sock hop." (Dan Otter in The Motley Fool)
New York State Pension Costs Expected to Double Next Year
Excerpt: "New York's pension costs will total $481.5 million for fiscal year 2003 to 2004, and will more than double next year, New York state Comptroller Alan Hevesi announced Oct. 16. Hevesi anticipates that the 2004 to 2005 pension costs will be $1.15 billion." (Buffalo Business First)
Opinion: Congress Seems Set To Make a Mistake On Pension Funds
Excerpt: "Congress is about to do for pension funds what it did for the savings-and-loan industry in the 1980s. It seems determined to paper over a serious problem in a way that will make things worse.... Today's law requires companies to calculate their liabilities using the yield on 30-year Treasury bonds. Last week, the House of Representatives voted to let them use a higher corporate-bond rate for the next three years." (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Named Beneficiary Revoked by Retroactive Application of State Law
Excerpt: "The designation of a former spouse as the beneficiary of annuities could be revoked in favor of a subsequent spouse by a state law enacted after the designation was made, and after the annuitant's divorce and remarriage, but prior to his death, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver (CA-10)." (CCH News and Information Library)
Mississippi Governor Supports Use of ESOP to Get Natchez Mill Running Again
Excerpt: "Gov. Ronnie Musgrove has pledged the support of the state in efforts by former employees efforts to buy International Paper's Natchez mill. The employee stock option [sic!] plan, or ESOP, has been in the works for several months now. The IP plant closed at the end of July, leaving about 640 people out of work." (Laurel [Miss.] Leader-Call)
The Five-Finger Bonus
Excerpt: "Bill Carey won't be retiring anytime soon. The president and owner of a small business in Wichita, Kan., got the first clue his retirement would be postponed when his trusted bookkeeper stepped out for the weekend in January 1999." (HR magazine)
University of California Pension Fund Provides Venture Capital Investment Information
Excerpt: "The data show that UC investments in venture capital funds have performed like those of other large pension funds. While they made more money over the long term than UC investments in public companies, venture funds performed much worse during the recent bear market." (SFGate.com)
Opinion: Long-Term Investing Vindicated Again
Excerpt: "While many people wrote its obituary over the past few years, long-term investing never died. It is putting on a show of great vitality right now, enjoying some hard-won vindication as stocks recover from the bear market of 2000-02." (Chet Currier on Bloomberg.com)
Opinion: the Link Between Free Trade and Social Security Choice
Excerpt: "All around the world, trade liberalization is cast as a battle between capitalists and workers, between 'global elites' and the 'common man.' In Chile, however, market-invested retirement funds mean that every worker is a capitalist and has a visible stake in an internationally competitive economy." (Jose Pinera published by the Cato Institute)
Links to Items on Executive Comp, Benefits in General
Former Baseball Players Seek Class Action Over Benefits
Excerpt: "Three former major league baseball players filed a class-action lawsuit against the league, it's 30 teams and commissioner Bud Selig on Thursday, claiming they were wrongfully denied pension and medical benefits and discriminated against because they were white." (AP via New York Times; one-time registration required)
GOP Agrees to Widen Veteran Benefits
10/16/2003. Excerpt: "Congressional Republicans agree Thursday to spend $22 billion over the next decade to allow more veterans to receive both disability benefits and full military retirement. The dispensation is currently available only to combat veterans. Hear NPR's Andrea Seabrook." (National Public Radio)
After Normal Retirement Age, Disabled Vets Could Collect Disability Benefit Plus Retirement Benefit
Excerpt: "Under pressure from veterans groups, the GOP leadership announced yesterday that it will allow more veterans to collect both full retirement and disability benefits, something they have been blocked from doing in the past." (Washington Post)
Opinion: Veterans Deserve Pension Equity
Excerpt: "Under a century-old law, pension payments to retired disabled veterans are reduced to offset the disability payments they receive from the government. As a result, a disabled combat veteran might be drawing no more pension than a clerk-typist who never saw a lick of combat." (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
WorldCom Battles Founder on Pension
Excerpt: "WorldCom Inc. has reached settlements with over 100 creditors that control more than $40 billion in debt as part of its bankruptcy case, but it is still locked in a dispute with company founder and former chief executive Bernard J. Ebbers over his $1.5 million annual pension." (Washington Post)
More High-Tech Firms Might Drop Stock Options
Excerpt: "After surveying 175 high-tech companies, accounting giant Deloitte concluded that many firms will phase out stock options, even as industry leaders fight to preserve the current rules that make the awards a cheap form of incentive compensation. The report was released Thursday." (AP via Washington Post)
2003 and 2004 Compensation Trends
Excerpt: "Lessons learned from the last recession and the rash of corporate accounting abuses that began to surface in 2001 are still evolving. However, in addition to developments that primarily affect the compensation of executives and boards of directors, the slowly recovering economy has caused noticeable changes in general compensation trends. This article examines these trends as well as changes in corporate governance processes." (Aon Consulting)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings
Trust Administrator
for CNA Trust
in CA
Vice President, Bids and Proposals
for AIG VALIC
in TX
Vice President, Retirement Services
for Invesmart
in KY
401(k) Technical Systems Consultant
for Wells Fargo Retirement Plan Services
in MN
Newly Posted Conferences
(Post Yours!)
Consumer-Directed Health 2003 Winter Symposium
in FL
December 3, 2003
Global Business Research
Mountain States Benefits Conference
in CO
September 13, 2004
ASPA
Newly Posted Press Releases
(Post Yours!)
Changes in Expenses Covered by Healthcare Plans
(Culpepper and Associates, Inc.)
Employease Selected for Forbes Best of the Web
(Employease)
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