A Glimpse of the PPEMO

Being a member of the PPEMO is to your advantage!

The Pension Plan of Elected Municipal Officers (PPEMO) covers the members of certain municipal councils, certain supramunicipal bodies and certain mandatary bodies of a municipality. Only elected municipal officers whose municipality joined the PPEMO are members of the plan.

One of the greatest advantages of being a member of the PPEMO, in addition to receiving a retirement income, is that it is a defined-benefit pension plan, which guarantees a pension the amount of which is set in advance. Therefore, the variation in the returns generated by the PPEMO fund does not affect your pension.

In addition, you could benefit from an unreduced pension for life, as of age 60 or, a reduced pension, as of age 50 if you have at least two years of service in both cases.

Lastly, the contribution of elected municipal officers has decreased since 1 January 2024 due to the plan's good financial health. Membership in the plan is now more advantageous!

Consult the PPEMO's electronic newsletter (French only) for more information on your plan. You will find answers to the following questions:

• How is your participation data broken down under the PPEMO? How is your pension calculated?
• When can you benefit from your pension and under what conditions? How is your pension indexed?
• What are your rights when you cease membership in the PPEMO?
• How are benefits partitioned in the event of the breakdown of a relationship?
• And much more.

Reduction of contributions to the plan

The improvement of the PPEMO's financial situation allowed to adjust the level of contributions required to fund the plan. Furthermore, a regulatory amendment has been made regarding this matter.

Therefore, in accordance with the plan's funding policy, the PPEMO's contribution rate for elected municipal officers has decreased from 5.26% to 4.81% and the contribution rate for municipalities has decreased from 17.73% to 16.21%, retroactively to 1 January 2024.

Every three years, the PPEMO's actuarial valuation is presented to the pension committee. The valuation allows to determine the contribution rates of elected municipal officers and municipalities, based on the PPEMO's funding policy, whose goal is to ensure the security of benefits and the stability of contributions.

Therefore, in June 2023, Retraite Québec's actuaries presented a new actuarial valuation of the plan that took into account the data as at 31 December 2021 to the pension committee. The actuarial value of the pension fund was $330.4M, and the actuarial value of the benefits accrued on the date of the valuation was $265.0 M. As a result, there was a surplus of $65.4M, which makes it possible to adjust the contributions.

Returns of 7.0% for the PPEMO fund in 2023

The PPEMO fund generated a 7.0% return in 2023. The fund is invested with the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), in fixed-income investments, in the Public equity portfolio, the Real Estate portfolio, the Infrastructure portfolio and the Private equity portfolio. The weight of each of these portfolios is indicated in the PPEMO investment policy, which is established jointly by the PPEMO pension committee and the CDPQ.

The year 2023 was marked by a good performance on the stock markets, and for infrastructures and fixed-income investments. The PPEMO funds' investments in these three asset categories have returns of 17.7%, 9.6% and 8.1%, respectively. However, the market environment has been less favourable for the Real estate portfolio and the Private equity portfolio by generating returns of -6.2 and 1.0%, respectively.

Over the past ten years, the PPEMO fund has increased by $155M. It increased from $196M as at 31 December 2013 to $351M as at 31 December 2023. During the ten-year period, the average annual return of the PPEMO fund was 7.5%, whereas it was 6.6% over the past five years.

Returns for the PPEMO fund from 2014 to 2023
(percentage)

Evolution of the value of the PPEMO fund as at 31 December
(billions of dollars)

My Account: more convenient than ever

Your personalized space in My Account is more convenient than ever. New functionalities have been added over the last few months. When you consult it, you can now:

• sign up for direct deposit and change your banking information;
• send documents;
• request additional income tax deductions.

Are you a member?

Access My Account. You will find information and tools that will help you plan financially for your retirement. For example, you can consult your Statements of Participation under the Québec Pension Plan (QPP) and the PPEMO. You will find the amounts that could be paid to you when you file your application. In addition, by using the CompuPension tool, you can carry out a simulation of your retirement income and compare different scenarios for savings and retirement. You will therefore have the relevant information to make informed decisions.

Are you a retiree?

Consult My Account. You will have access to the breakdown of the monthly payments of your pension. You will also find the Your Pension Statement of Benefits, which indicates the calculation of the last indexation of your pension and provides information on how it has evolved.

Furthermore, remember that every year, not later than the last day of February, your income tax slips are automatically uploaded to My Account.

Choose your communication preferences

My Account allows you to choose your communication preferences. We recommend that you choose the digital option. That way, you will not miss anything thanks to notifications that will be sent to you when a new document has been uploaded to your file or one of your applications has been processed.

My Account is your simple, safe and essential connection to Retraite Québec.

Log in to My Account

Members of the PPEMO pension committee