Firefly Admin Inc.

LIFE EXPECTANCY

April 19, 2019

Life expectancy, or mortality, is an integral part of determining how much a sponsor of a defined benefit plan must contribute to the trust fund to pay for the promised benefits. In actuarial science, the mortality assumption is not just the answer to the question “how long will I live?”. It is instead more of…

TIME VALUE OF MONEY

April 18, 2019

The time value of money is a core principle in the world of finance. It is also an important factor in actuarial calculations. In general the time value of money is the idea that money is money available to you today is more valuable than that same amount paid at a later date. The reason…

BENEFICIARY DESIGNATION MISTAKE #3

April 16, 2019

Something else we see an awful lot really just comes down to paying attention! Have you had a significant life event – marriage, child(ren) born, divorce or parents die? All of these events could impact your beneficiary designation. In particular, if you get divorced, you should immediately update your beneficiary. Even if you want to…

BENEFICIARY DESIGNATION MISTAKE #1

April 12, 2019

In the last post we discussed the importance of designating a beneficiary. If you have completed a beneficiary designation form – great! However, there are still some common mistakes we have seen over the years that must be avoided. Even if you have completed a form, you may want to review that designation. One mistake we…

BENEFICIARY DESIGNATIONS

April 11, 2019

One of the main purposes of a LOSAP is to reward those who volunteer their time at the local fire department or ambulance. In the overwhelming majority of cases, this means paying the volunteer when he/she reaches the age of entitlement. However, a provision must be made in the event a volunteer dies before reaching…

CLARIFYING THE MARCH 31ST DEADLINE

April 10, 2019

Yesterday a question came in about the March 31st deadline in the New York State law. I thought it would be worth clarifying here again. The NY State General Municipal Law requires that the fire company submit the list of members of the fire company identifying those volunteers that earned 50 points during the calendar year to…

NY STATE LOSAP POINTS SHOULD BE TRACKED ON A CALENDAR YEAR

April 9, 2019

To a lot of you, this may sound obvious and not new information. However, we have run across several situations here in NY State where the LOSAP points were being tracked based on another period and not a calendar year. I’ve run into it before in Villages, which typically run on a 6/1 to 5/31…

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DEFINED BENEFIT & DEFINED CONTRIBUTION PLANS

April 8, 2019

The General Municipal Law defines a Defined Benefit Plan and Defined Contribution Plan as follows: 2.“Defined benefit plan” means any service award program that provides to eligible volunteer firefighters, a benefit that is definitely determinable under the program without reference to the amount contributed to the program on the participant’s behalf or to any income,…

MEMORY

April 5, 2019

Memory is a funny thing. Someone can be really good at memorizing facts and recalling those facts. But memory of an event that happens in real time is completely different, and very hard to recall with 100% accuracy. Two or more people can be at the very same event, and remember that event very differently. …

ONE PERSON DRILL?

April 4, 2019

An interesting question was posed to me today – can a volunteer who participates in a one-person drill be awarded a point under the drill category? My initial reaction was no – there is no such thing as a one-person drill. But then I stopped to think about it. Article 11-A doesn’t define a drill.…