Insurance

GASB OPEB Requirements & Resources

The Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) issued statement No. 43 entitled “Financial Reporting for Post-employment Benefit Plans Other Than Pension Plans” in April 2004. GASB issued statement No. 45 entitled “Accounting and Financial Reporting by Employers for Post-employment Benefits Other Than Pensions” in June 2004.

You may be asking yourself why GASB 43 and 45 are important to me and my employees. The purpose of GASB 43 is to require the accrual of liabilities of other post-employment benefits (OPEB) generally over the working career of plan members rather than on a pay-as-you-go basis which is the current practice for most government sponsored plans. The purpose of GASB 45 is to require the accrual of the (OPEB) expense over the same time period.

South Central Service Cooperative is pleased to announce our partnership with MidAmerica Actuarial Solutions, Inc. Their actuarial services can provide you with a solution to meeting the new Federal GASB reporting requirements. Michael J. Blackburn, Chief Actuary for MidAmerica Actuarial Solutions, Inc., has information regarding GASB Federal reporting requirements and potential solutions to help meet these requirements. Please contact Michael J. Blackburn (863-688-4500) or Wanda Sommers Nielsen, South Central Service Cooperative, (507-389-1076) if you have questions.

Here are some important dates to keep in mind:
For the purposes of defining the effective date of the standards, GASB 43 and 45 use the terms phase 1 government, phase 2 government and phase 3 government where such terms are defined in GASB 34, paragraph 143. The following table shows the definitions of these three phases and their respective GASB 43 and 45 effective dates.

Phase	Total Annual Revenues (1)	GASB 43 applies for periods beginning after the following dates:	GASB 45 applies for periods beginning after the following dates:
1 2 3	$100,000,000 or more $10,000,000 - $100,000,000 Less than $10,000,000	12/15/05 12/15/06 12/15/07	12/15/06 12/15/07 12/15/08

Note 1 - Based on a government’s total annual revenues in the first year ending after 6/15/99.