Health of TCP1 pension
About 10 years ago the pension at LLNS was heading towards trouble blamed on poor stock market returns and low interest rates. The employees were told to contribute 7% of their income post tax until the pension was in a more favorable economic position. Since then the stock market has seen great returns and now the benefit of higher interest rates. It seems that either LLNS cannot manage these funds or they have added to the liability column with senior management.
Comments
Worker bees were told only employees of UC/LLNL prior to October 1, 2007, could select the TCP1 pension option(?). For 16+ years now, all LLNS salaries have been off the public radar. Another reason to switch to a non-profit in 2026 to manage LLNL.
By the way, don’t think your pension and benefits are grandfathered in, just look at what happened to a subset of UC employees effective July 1, 2013.
Non-Profits:
“Salaries must be reasonable and not excessive
In order to maintain your organization’s tax-exempt status, the IRS requires that nonprofit salaries should be “reasonable” and “not excessive.” The IRS defines “reasonable” compensation as “the value that would ordinarily be paid for like services by like enterprises under like circumstances.”
“Salaries are public record
Nonprofits that file Form 990 or 990-EZ are required to report the compensation of its highest paid staff members. Since this information is public record, potential donors can look to see if staff salaries are reasonable and compare how much the nonprofit spends for programs versus salaries.”
https://learning.candid.org/resources/knowledge-base/can-nonprofit-founders-and-staff-get-paid-a-salary/#:~:text=Salaries%20are%20public%20record,spends%20for%20programs%20versus%20salaries.
I do know by 2013, UC was having material retirement fund issues resulting in a 2 tier retirement benefit based on age and service that went into effect July 1, 2013 that was NOT grandfathered in.