Two more multiemployer pension funds have applied for permission to reduce benefits to remain solvent, according to the Treasury Department's website listing applications under the Kline-Miller Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014.
Composition Roofers Local 42, Cincinnati, Ohio, is proposing to implement a flat 45% benefit suspension to all participants, except for those aged 80 or more or disabled. The plan, which had $25.2 million in assets and $76.3 million in liabilities as of Jan.1, 2017, projects that it will be insolvent by plan year 2030 without the benefit reductions, which would start April 1, 2020.
I.B.E.W. Local Union No. 237 Pension Plan, Niagara Falls, N.Y., is projected to be insolvent by plan year 2028, and is proposing the start the benefit reductions on July 1, 2020. In 2017, the latest available filing, the plan had assets of $19.1 million and was 29.1% funded.
Since the MPRA application process began in 2016, Treasury has denied five applications and approved 14 benefit reduction plans. The other pending application is Sheet Metal Workers Local Pension Fund, Troy, Mich., for benefit reductions of up to 20.2%, excluding disabled participants.
