Please share this information with any appropriate contacts within your organization.

We want to be sure everyone has the pensionable portions of Vacation Pay and Statutory Holiday pay separated into a unique pay code. These earnings need to be marked as pensionable earnings as of January 1, 2007. The payroll system needs to be able to uniquely identify these monies. Please refer to the BC Municipal Pension bulletins on the Vacation Pay and Statutory Holiday pay for more details.

According to the BC Municipal Pension these holiday earnings are not only to be pensionable but must also generate pensionable service. Since the payroll system currently requires pensionable hours to generate pension service we will need to make an adjustment to the system to accommodate this requirement.

It was my thought to take this opportunity to describe what I suggest for the generation of pensionable service from these vacation monies, since no hours are available related to this money. This gives us all a chance to think this plan through and if necessary discuss this option.

In order to generate the pension service for the holiday earnings, we would add a calculation to the OPS BC Annual Pension report. The annual report could calculate the holiday percentage per employee, per pay period base on the holiday pay code earnings verses the pensionable earnings. The pension service for the given period would then be adjusted based on the calculated holiday percentage, totaling for the year. This same process can be applied to the Pension Credit report with more details for verification or reference.

Having the annual pension report generate the service based on earnings from a unique pay code allows you to setup the holiday earnings payment anyway you like (pay banks, occupation or shift codes etc) and still have one simple method for the system to meet all your needs. This method would also mean that it would not be necessary for a process to be in place as of January 1, 2007.

If you have any concerns or comments, please address your inquires to Susan Vernon.