Some background information regarding the RRSP payments and the PITT Fund.  Some of you know but for those that don’t, the PITT Fund makes an RRSP deposit for individuals working under Commercial contracts and/or Enabled Industrial jobs.  Federal legislation prohibits the Pension Plan from accepting contributions into the Pension Fund from PITT as they are not the employer.  Because of this Federal legislation, the PITT Fund makes a deposit to the individual’s RRSP in the amount which would have been payable to the Pension Plan, if not for the legislation, based on the hours worked and  the applicable pension contribution rate.

Reports are provided monthly by Commercial Contractors and the hours are tracked through Excel spreadsheets.  Each year, individuals that fall under the RRSP deposit must provide the PITT Fund with a copy of their Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) Notice of Assessment, which indicates the amount of RRSP room they have for the year as well as, sign a document that states they will not self-contribute to their RRSP such that they would go over their CRA limit for the year when combined with the PITT Fund deposit.

The PITT Fund issues deposits twice a year, July and December.  If an individual does not submit their documents within the specified time frame to meet the deadline for the deposit (July or December) then the deposit is not made at that time and is held until the next deposit due date.  If an individual does not provide the required documents in that year or if they don’t have RRSP room, then his/her amount is carried forward into the next year when the documentation process starts over.

Last year all spreadsheets were reviewed to ensure that all hours for each individual were being tracked correctly.  While there were some errors where the hours in the spreadsheet did not match the hours on the report, these were corrected and the RRSP amount was re-calculated and where applicable deposited to the individual’s RRSP.  These types of errors are the result of a Contractor submitting the report late or because the Contractor did adjustments to hours that were previously reported in a subsequent month and as with any job there is possible human error.  

In a few cases individuals received the full amount of the required contributions deposited into their RRSP which exceeded their CRA RRSP limit for the year. The result is the member must deal with the over contribution to the RRSP as per the rules set out by the Government of Canada or they will be issued a fine for the over contribution. All members that have been affected by this situation have been contacted and are taking appropriate steps as they see fit.

There was no misappropriation of funds, nor were there any overpayments such that an individual received more than what the pension amount would have been.  Individuals that have not received a deposit simply have not provided the required documentation or they don’t have the RRSP room for a deposit to be made.

Local 110 in conjunction with the PITT Fund Trustees have implemented on-going reviews of the spreadsheets and limited the number of staff that can access the spreadsheet files. If an error is discovered, it will be corrected and recalculations performed with all necessary steps taken before the next RRSP deposit.

Lastly, I would like to thank the members for their concern on the implementation of this program. However, the mistakes that happened over the last few years were corrected before the PITT Fund T4s were sent out in February 2015.

Thank you all and please keep in mind that your Business Agents and Manager’s office doors are always open.