Benefits June 17, 2005

Oregon Candidate Proposes K Plan for New Public Hires

June 17, 2005 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - The GOP candidate for governor of Oregon has proposed moving new public employees to a K plan style retirement program.
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The proposal from candidate Kevin Mannix, which mirrors similar efforts in other states around the country, calls for a set amount of public money to be paid into the accounts, according to the Associated Press.

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Mannix also said he would not take away current employees’ traditional pensions under the Public Employees Retirement System. Instead, he would encourage them to switch to the defined contribution style plan through incentives.

With many states grappling with budget shortfalls and looking to the potential savings of a defined benefit to defined contribution migration, public employees groups have accused officials of shortchanging public employees who have counted on guaranteed pensions (See Running the Fund: Taking It Personal ).

The public employee groups have mounted a counterattack on the efforts to move workers to a DC plan by offering local groups national legal and marketing support.

Benefits June 16, 2005

A Third of Small Oklahoma Firms Don't Offer Health Coverage

June 16, 2005 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - A third of small Oklahoma companies offer no workplace health coverage, according to a new survey.
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More than half of all small companies – those with less than 50 employees – provide no retirement plan for workers, the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission survey found, according to a Daily Oklahoman report.

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Meanwhile, nearly all state businesses with more than 250 employees provide health care benefits to employees and to their dependents, the survey showed. More than eight of 10 large businesses in the state offer some form of retirement plan.

The state survey also found that 26.5% of employers are combining leave time such as sick days and vacation to be used at the discretion of employees. More than a third of responding companies offer six or fewer paid holidays each year.

Roughly the same amount – 35.2% – offer seven or eight paid holidays annually, with the remainder offering more. More than 6% of companies provide 12 or more paid holiday days off to employees, according to the survey. The vast majority of companies provide paid time off for Christmas Day, Thanksgiving, New Year’s Day, Labor Day, Independence Day and Memorial Day.

The next most popular paid holidays were the day after Thanksgiving, offered by 46.2% of companies responding; New Year’s Eve, 31.9%; Christmas Eve, 30.5%; Good Friday, 17.6%; and a floating holiday or personal leave day, 12.7%.

The commission conducted the survey in late 2003. The agency mailed an eight-page, 45-question form to 3,384 randomly selected employers of varying sizes in different industries across the state. More than 61% submitted survey responses.

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