Police retirements hinge on pension
Force dealing with expected staffing transition
The ranks of the local police service are expected to ripple with change now that the Cape Breton Regional Municipality has transferred its defined benefit pension scheme to a new plan.
The move to the Public Service Superannuation Plan involves the pensions of 1,157 past and present municipal workers, including members of the Cape Breton Regional Police Service.
A Cape Breton Post story from March reported that while more than 40 employees of the police service were eligible to retire with pensions, many were staying on to see if the new pension scheme would be an improvement over the old plan. The transfer, which was authorized by the Municipal and Other Authorities Pension Plan Transfer Act of November of 2016, was completed earlier this month, although the administrative transition is expected to be completed by spring. Cape Breton Regional Police Service Chief Peter McIsaac was unavailable to speak on the matter on Thursday, but police spokeswoman Desiree Vassallo confirmed that personnel changes are in motion.
“We have had some retirements come in and that’s all in the process right now and that will be something that will be talked about at the next police commission meeting,” said Vassalo. “It’s an ongoing process — we are experiencing some retirements and we have had some retirement notices put in since the switchover to the new pension and we’re dealing with those now.”
Vassallo said staffing will be one of the issues that McIsaac is expected to address when he appears before the police commission meeting scheduled for Thursday at city hall.
Last year, McIsaac revealed that one-quarter of the service workforce and three-quarters of its management team were retirement eligible. He told the Post that steps were already being taken to help the service through the expected staffing transition that was forecast to occur once the pension plan was sorted out.
Other plans that have joined or transferred into the Public Service Superannuation Plan include South Shore Public Libraries, Acadia University, Cape Breton University (partial), Université Sainte-Anne, Sherbrooke Village Restoration Commission, University of King’s College and Halifax Harbour Bridges.