2017 Finance Annual Report

NOTESTOTHE CONSOLIDATED CITY OF SURREY FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

For the year ended December 31, 2017 [tabular amounts in thousands of dollars]

9. EMPLOYEE FUTURE BENEFITS

The City provides certain post-employment and sick leave benefits to its employees. These benefits include accumulated non-vested sick leave, post-employment service pay and post-retirement top-ups for dental, life insurance and accidental death, dismemberment insurance, vacation deferral, supplementary vacation and benefit continuation for disabled employees. The liability associated with these benefits is calculated based on the present value of expected future payments pro-rated for services, and is included in accounts payable and accrued liabilities. An actuarial valuation for these benefits was performed to determine the City’s accrued benefit obligation as at December 31, 2017. The difference between the actuarially determined accrued benefit obligation of $25.0 million and the accrued benefit liability of $27.1 million as at December 31, 2017 is an unamortized actuarial gain of $2.1 million. The actuarial gain is amortized over a period equal to the employees’ average remaining service life of 11 years (2016 – 11 years).

2016

Accrued benefit obligation: Balance, beginning of year

2017

$

23,687

$

25,364

Current service cost

1,901

1,815

Interest cost

789 304

819

Actuarial loss (gain)

(771)

Benefits paid

(1,317)

(2,240)

Accrued benefit obligation, end of year

$

25,364

$

24,987

Reconciliation of accrued benefit obligation to accrued benefit liability:

2016

2017

$

25,364

Actuarial benefit obligation, end of year

$

24,987

Unamortized actuarial gain

1,539

2,066

Accrued benefit liability, end of year

$

26,903

$

27,053

Actuarial assumptions used to determine the City’s accrued benefit obligation are as follows:

2016

2017

Discount rate

3.20% 1.80% 0.50%

3.00% 1.80% 0.50%

Expected future inflation rate

Expected wage and salary range increases

Employee average remaining service life (years)

11.0

11.0

57