JANUARY 31, 2018
MINNESOTA NEWS + OPINION
Minneapolis Committee of 13
An organization that spends millions of
dollars on a state-by-state effort to privatize public pensions is now playing
a significant role in pension discussions at the Minnesota state capitol. The
Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement (LCPR) heard testimony on
Wednesday from a University ...
Minnesota Public Radio News
Whether it comes to dealing with pensions or the opioid crisis or
making sure that people who were brought to this country when they were
children have a path to citizenship. That's something that we've got bipartisan
agreement on. So let's do it. Republicans are of course teeing up the
criticism. Senate ...
St. Cloud Times
State pension reform and stabilization will be on O'Driscoll's agenda
this spring. "People are living longer, healthier and happier, which is
all good," O'Driscoll said. He wants to make sure the pension system is
equipped to handle that. He'll be looking at the Minnesota election process to
see if there are ...
TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press
That entails a focus on issues in which the
league can be “distinctly useful,” she told us, citing property taxes, public
pensions and the workforce among possibilities, and noting that the league uses
events to test member interest and the resonance of topics. A December
gathering on aging, for example, ...
NATIONAL NEWS + OPINION
Reason Foundation
Major Advisors Lower Their Long-Term
Investment Return Outlooks, Curbing Public Pension Plans' Enthusiasm. Public
pension plans should use these market outlook updates to better gauge their
long-term investment return assumptions and safeguard pension assets from the
future market volatilities.
Chicago Tribune
While full details of this plan are expected to be unveiled Tuesday
before a state panel, bond and public finance experts are already highly
skeptical. They're concerned it will add to Illinois' pension burdens — now
estimated at $130 billion in unfunded liabilities and growing — and further
hinder the ...
In These Times
Recent history offers no support for the idea that magical stock market
profits—rather than actual contributions—can save the public pension system.
Stock prices more than tripled between their low in March 2009 and the end of
the third quarter of 2017, but according to Federal Reserve statistics,
this ...
Pension Policy International
A new research paper from the Stanford University Graduate School of
Business discusses the rationality (or otherwise) of the return expectations of
institutional investors, with especial reference to public pension funds. It
finds that the returns that pension fund managers expect from their investments
are ...
Chief Investment Officer
Public pension systems saw a year of positive returns, adopting more
conservative investment assumptions as well as budgeting their spending, an
annual National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems (NCPERS)
report shows. Pulling responses from 164 state and local government ...
Barron's
Yet many pensions still assume they will be able to generate the
returns they saw in the past. New Jersey's pension and the California Public
Employees' Retirement System have lowered their assumed rate of return to 7%.
But with the 30-year Treasury yielding less than 3% and stocks already at
record ...
Quad City Times
Bertrand said he opposes any changes to the Iowa Public Employees'
Retirement System, or IPERS. ... Iowa's public employee pension funds are
funded at more than 80 percent, according to multiple independent studies, and
that typically ranks it among the healthiest public pension funds in the
nation.
PLANSPONSOR
In 2017, public pensions managed to raise the market value of fund
assets above the actuarial value of assets, the National Conference on Public
Employee Retirement Systems (NCPERS) found in a survey of 164 state and local
government pension funds, conducted in partnership with Cobalt ...
Pensions & Investments
Since the blissful ignorance of the pre-financial crisis period, public
pension funds have had to deal with the reality of that lower return
assumptions have hit the largest U.S. public pension plans. While the few plans
that maintain 8%-plus return assumptions are in a better funded position than
most, data ...
Business Wire (press release)
“The nation's pension systems are deeply committed to their mission of
providing a secure retirement for millions of firefighters, police officers,
teachers, and other public sector workers,” Kim said. “Over the seven years we
have conducted this annual study, pension systems have grown
increasingly ...
Yankee Institute (blog)
Teacher pensions face a much more difficult future and could grow to $6
billion per year if the state does not meet its discount rate. Unlike state
employee pensions, teacher pension are set in statute and can be changed
legislatively. Yankee Institute's Director of Public Policy Suzanne Bates
pointed out ...
The Courier-Journal
And Bowen emphasized that retired teacher health benefits have never
been part of what is known as the “inviolable contract” – a bedrock principle
in state pension law that protects pension benefits given a public employee at
the time they were hired. Bowen complained that the Kentucky Teachers' ...
Chief Investment Officer
The public employers that will incur the
additional costs are state agencies, state universities and colleges, school
districts, counties, and certain municipalities and other governmental
entities. Among employer groups responsible for the additional contributions,
Florida's counties would be expected to ...
SaukValley.com
Illinois lawmakers are gearing up to start another spring session that
will include more attempts to address an issue that has remained stubbornly
elusive so far. What can the state do to rein in the cost of public employee
pensions and try to address the $129 billion debt faced by the five
state-funded ...
NPR Illinois | 91.9 UIS
The survey of all 50 states found some are better than others when it
comes to budget forecasting, putting money aside and paying down long term
debts like public pensions. But Illinois was among the worst states overall in
most categories. Glasgall is especially critical of how Illinois handles what
are ...
American Legislative Exchange Council
Pensions. National: “Everything is Overvalued” – Public Pensions Face
Dangerous Dilemma In 2018. National: Only One Report Has Aggregate State
Pension Funding Level Above 50 Percent, Looming Insolvency Crisis Noted.
Arizona: Phoenix City Councilman Aims to Reduce Public Pension Debt, ...
Pensions & Investments
Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, Columbus, approved slight
changes to its target asset allocation, spokesman Todd Hutchins said in an
email. The $97.5 billion retirement system, which includes $83.7 billion in
pension fund assets, increased its pension fund target allocation to international ...
The State
Here's some perspective on just how hot the water will get: As a result
of the bailout, taxpayers will pay more than double into the pension what
public employees do. This two-to-one ratio is way out of whack; the Heartland
Institute argues in its survey of states' pension systems that “a fair rule of
thumb ...
WiscNews
The Wisconsin Retirement System funds — the source of pensions for
nearly 198,000 retired public employees — brought in double-digit earnings in
... The state Department of Employee Trust Funds uses the results, along with
an actuarial analysis, to calculate adjustments in the pension checks
of ...
National Public Pension Coalition
Today Chris Christie departs the New Jersey governor's mansion.
Christie's record of failure includes repeated broken promises to fund public
pensions.
Chief Investment Officer
The National Association of State Retirement Administrators, (NASRA)
has rejected the findings of a recent report on public pension funding from the
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), saying the findings contain
“serious flaws.” The ALEC report claimed that US public pension plans are
far ...
The Courier-Journal
FRANKFORT, Ky. – Gov. Matt Bevin on Tuesday night proposed a budget
that he said would eliminate 70 state programs and cut spending at most
agencies by 6.25 percent while fully funding state pension plans. And the
governor gave a high priority in the lean spending plan to the main public
school ...
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Murphy, 60, ran as an unabashed liberal who
pledged to nearly double the minimum wage to $15, legalize marijuana, and offer
free community college. He also said he would “fully fund” schools and public
workers' pensions and spend more on public transportation, but it's unclear how
he'll accomplish ...
