Regarding the pension payout statements Gannett is now delivering to employees after freezing the retirement plan, a reader says in an e-mail: "It might be worthwhile to take a few soundings now that the personalized statements have gone out. It appears that the company made some truly sinister 'mistakes' in calculating present and future payouts. The numbers fall short by tens of thousands. They owe an explanation. Maybe they made personalized mistakes, but a general explanation would be appropriate."
Monday, June 16, 2008
Reader: Mistakes in pension payout statements?
Regarding the pension payout statements Gannett is now delivering to employees after freezing the retirement plan, a reader says in an e-mail: "It might be worthwhile to take a few soundings now that the personalized statements have gone out. It appears that the company made some truly sinister 'mistakes' in calculating present and future payouts. The numbers fall short by tens of thousands. They owe an explanation. Maybe they made personalized mistakes, but a general explanation would be appropriate."
12 comments:
Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."
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How would you know if they made a mistake?
ReplyDeleteIn the previous pension change in '98, a middle group was created. They were to get a larger pension because they were older, and had less time to benefit from the increase in the 401K match. I'm finding that some of those individuals, who are now over 60, have been quoted a pension figure nearly identical to those in the lower group, but with comparable pay. Those who previously requested their retirement benefits (it is my understanding you had to provide two possible retirement dates) are finding that the amount now is over $100k less than they were quoted last year with respect to what they had accured. One guy described it to me as, "Life changing". Maybe they want it to be job changing. He's trying to figure out if he needs to retire before August 1 to preserve a substantial portion of his retirement. Any similar stories?
ReplyDeleteOur HR office has been flooded with queries from people who have no idea what the new materials mean. HR has no idea how to explain them. They said they are waiting for some word from corporate.
ReplyDeleteThe new statements do look like some huge cut has happened, but that could be a matter of fragmentary information. As in, fragmentary to the point of being unintelligible.
I too requested pension benefit statements last year comparing two potential retirement dates.
The new statement on its surface bears zero relationship to those statements. It lists a "base" benefit that appears nowhere in the pension estimates. Now, those statements are damn near impenetrable, so figuring out how they might relate to the new statements is impossible, as far as I can tell.
However, the older, more detailed statements do indicate certain multipliers (and who knows where they come from) are applied to the five-last-years salary average that is *supposed* to be the basis of the pension calculation.
The new "base" number may just be some raw figure without any of the multiples attached. If so, they could have made the thing more useful by explaining that. Or explaining *something.*
Among the many sad facts here is the truth that many of us never knew or understood the pension plan. Many of us never would have accepted the ambiguity or refusal to account if the plan had been a story involving reader interests or public interest. It wasn't a story and corporate made it hard to get answers, so we slaved and ignored the erosion of our futures.
ReplyDeleteI would have no idea if there are any errors in my pension statement. How do I know what I am due now. I have heard there are a bunch of people who have wrong statements!!! I wonder how many other people have problems.
ReplyDeleteThis is a huge issue at our newsroom. Everyone is talking about it.
This is a great scheme by Martore and her minions in the benefits department to steal our money. Good job corporate!
Who is going to prove to me that this is correct?
Jim,
ReplyDeleteCheck out the filing from Gannett regarding the change in the pension plan...
"Certain employees, including named executive officers Craig A. Dubow, Gracia C. Martore and Craig A. Moon, will continue to accrue benefits under the SERP after August 1, 2008"
What does Moon, Martore and Dubow do any differently that gives them this benefit? They should all be fired. A bunch of losers.
People at my station used to be big fans of Dubow, now, they refer to him as that "piece of shit".
Martore is a bean counter and Moon is almost retired.
What's sad is they didn't even tell some of their execs this was coming. Tom Donovan was left completely in the dark until employees asked him about it in staff meetings the day the pension freeze was announced.
ReplyDeleteAnd is anyone really surprised by the shell game? When they introduced the spousal surcharge a few years back, the wording on the insurance plan was so confusing -- deliberately so, if you ask me -- that had a few keen eyes not read it carefully, they would have docked dozens of employees for surcharges they were not required to pay.
The bungling of the personalized pension statements is pretty indicative of the incompetence of some of the over-paid corporate boobs.
ReplyDeleteIf this doesn't come back to haunt Roxanne Horning at bonus time, then nothing will. She lays the blame for this on a "data glitch". It wasn't the data that screwed up, Roxanne. It was the corporate staff. Let's be honest with employees.
Here's her email to employees in which she trots out her lame excuses:
* * *
Dear Employee:
I am sorry to report that the personalized retirement statement you received this past week contained an error caused by a data glitch. Your actual benefit is larger than the one previously shown.
We are correcting the error and sending a new statement immediately. You should have it within a week. The new benefit will be shown on page 2.
Very few of the 26,000 statements we sent have this error. Even so, we truly regret it and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
If you have any questions, please talk to your Human Resources representative or call the retirement helpline at 866.357.3093.
Sincerely,
Roxanne Horning
Senior Vice President/Human Resources
* * *
If the employees are Gannett's most valuable asset, as Craig Dubow keeps saying, then how on earth could a mistake like this be made? As one of my coworkers would say about the corporate staff, "They couldn't organize a one-car funeral procession."
(I'm guessing that if you poured truth serum down Craig's throat he would tell you that Gannett's cushy corporate perks -- the fat bonus checks, the wining and dining, the corporate jet, etc. -- are really the most important "assets".)
One has to wonder whether the company is hoping that since most employees don't have a clue how large their pension should be now, most would accept their pension statements as accurate.
-- P.O.'ed, But Not Surprised.
You do realize when you call retirement helpline at 866.357.3093 you are not calling Gannett. You are calling
ReplyDeleteHewitt Associates, the 401k administrators. The phone answerer, at least polite, noted they are getting 150-300 calls a day, the calls go there because Hewitt has more people to answer such calls than Gannett. Hewitt sends over a list of questions the next morning, someone will get back to you within 7 days,
Poor Donovan. No one told him what was going on and left him hanging in the wind.
ReplyDeleteSame as he's done to the Press.
Bringing in Veeps who aren't familiar with the company or the area. Keeping Veeps who are basically suck-ups.
Standing up in front of the groups trying to sound convincing about how "powerful" our products are. While you can read it in his eyes; "Hey, Virginia, please give me a hint!"
Guernsey said...
ReplyDeleteYou do realize when you call retirement helpline at 866.357.3093 you are not calling Gannett. You are calling
Hewitt Associates, the 401k administrators.
I believe that is really what rankles me: Why on earth is the corporate benefits department or Human Resources department not trained on the pension plan freeze? Is it not their responsebility to cover such life-changing issues?
I don't care that they don't have enough staff. What are other departments doing with half the staff they had before? Well, Human Resources, dive into it and get a piece of the heat! Is that not your job????
I'll guess the employees in Human Resources or Benefits (what an empty description) are really having a ball of a time. They're really getting their paychecks in their sleep! What a farce!!!!!!!
@9:06 pm: My experience over the years at four different Gannett newspapers is this: human resources departments are stocked with unhappy, often-surly employees who have been reduced to pushing paperwork, and looking for ways to keep Gannett from being sued. Of those four papers, USA Today's HR was the absolute worst.
ReplyDelete