GNWT silent after Yk1 asks for funding
Board's request to help fund $400,000 pension plan so far ignored
Candace Thomson
Northern News Services
Published Friday, March 21, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The new pension plan announced for teachers in Yellowknife Education District No. 1 might have to go on without funding from the territorial government.
The plan, which will cost $400,000 a year, brought the Yk1 budget for the 2013/2014 school year to $32.1 million, it was announced during a November board meeting where a collective agreement between Yk1 and the Northwest Territories Teachers' Association (NWTTA) was approved.
Before the agreement, Yk1 and Yellowknife Catholic Schools were the only two school districts in the NWT without a defined pension plan.
The defined pension plan provides teachers a set amount at retirement, depending on years of service and age.
The contributed plan that was in place before was an arrangement in which the employer and employee both contributed a certain amount, which was then invested.
Trustees approved the agreement without previously securing funding from the GNWT, and to date the board's request for help in funding the plan has so far gone without reply, according to Yk1 chair John Stephenson.
"We've had no response from the government to assist us with additional costs of the new pension plan," Stephenson said.
"We will be faced with significant additional costs to provide a defined benefit pension plan for teachers. There's been no response (from the board's request to the GNWT) to provide equity in funding from other school boards that already have defined benefit plans."
The Department of Education, Culture and Employment did not reply to requests for comment by press time.
The pension plan, however, comes at a cost to teachers. As of this year, teachers will no longer have their sabbatical leave benefit. Sabbatical leaves allowed teachers to take a year off for professional development without risk of losing their position while receiving a percentage of their salary.
In the new agreement, Yk1 teachers also will not receive a pay increase retroactive to September 2013. A one per cent salary increase will be applied for September 2014, September 2015 and February 2016.
In the previous agreement, which was ratified in May 2009, teachers received a four per cent increase for the first year of the agreement, 4.25 per cent for the second year, 4.5 per cent for the third year and five per cent for the fourth year, according to a NWTTA news release from 2009.
Despite the lack of response to funding from the GNWT, Stephenson said the board will continue with the plan.
"We'll certainly be introducing the pension as committed and the extra cost is an element of our overall budgeting for next school year," he said.
