Union: Utility owes $115M (IPL, AES accused of shortchanging retirement plan)

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Indianapolis Business Journal

Chris O’Malley - [e-mail]

In a case with huge financial implications for Indianapolis Power & Light and Virginia parent AES Corp., a labor union and 16 IPL retirees have asked regulators to force the utility to pay up to $115 million to back-fund a retirement plan it spun off in 2001.

IPL also should resume annual funding of the IPALCO Enterprises Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1395 states in a complaint filed Nov. 13 with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.

The VEBA plan has lost millions of dollars in assets and has had to slash life and health insurance benefits for its 1,600 participants since IPL spun off the trust six years ago and stopped funding it. It created the trust as part of a 1995 rate case, after the commission said IPL could raise its electric rates in part to fund retirement benefits.

The complaint alleges IPL has violated the terms of that rate settlement by continuing to collect $19 million annually from Indianapolis’ 460,000 electric customers for a plan it no longer manages or funds.

Read more: http://cms.ibj.com/ASPXPages/6iframes/FrontEndArticlesD...

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