APRIL 3, 2018
MINNESOTA NEWS + OPINION
Minnesota House should act on
clean pension bill
Minneapolis
Star Tribune
editorial …Better still, a robust bill to prop up
Minnesota’s listing pension funds for public employees — including teachers and
state and local government workers — won 66-0 approval in the state Senate.
That bill now heads to the House, which ought to give it prompt no-nonsense
attention.
Pensions
& Investments
The
bill would reduce the rate of return assumption to 7.5% from 8% for the $28.7
billion Minnesota Public
Employees Retirement
Association, $22 billion Minnesota
State Retirement System and the $956 million St. Paul Teachers' Retirement Fund Association, all of
St. Paul, according to a summary of ...
Chief Investment Officer
The Minnesota
State Senate has unanimously approved a pension overhaul bill that proposes
mandatory contribution increases, reduced cost-of-living adjustments, and a
lower investment rate of return for the state's public retirement plans.
Backers of the reform say the proposed bill would save ...
Austin Daily Herald
The amount going
into pension accounts for police officers, teachers, state clerical workers and
many others eventually won't be enough to pay benefits out. The various
accounts cover more than 500,000 current or future recipients. Those
beneficiaries are living longer. The assumed rate of investment ...
Minnesota Public Radio News
Early retirement
or pension cash-outs would be less attractive. The bill spends $27 million this
year and calls for more spending in the future. "The resulting
sustainability package that includes these significant benefit reforms and
adjustments are the largest in Minnesota pension history. They focus on ...
Minneapolis Star Tribune
ST. PAUL, Minn. —
The Minnesota Senate has signed off on raises for the state's 30,000 public
employees and voted to plug a budget shortfall in state pension plans.
Underfunded pensions and state employee contracts have been controversial at
the Capitol for years. Republicans on a legislative panel ...
Mankato Free Press
Others are putting
off retirement because they have to keep working to make a living. Public
policy has encouraged workers to stay on the job longer, said Kristian
Braekkan, senior regional planner for the Region Nine Development Commission
and an associate professor in economics and ...
NATIONAL NEWS + OPINION
USA
TODAY
All
of Kentucky's public schools
were closed Monday as thousands of teachers protested a surprise pension reform bill at the state
Capitol. While the majority are of the state's 120 county school districts have
spring break this week, 21 school districts canceled because of Monday's rally,
either deciding to ...
Education Week
Republican
lawmakers passed a pension overhaul Thursday that preserves benefits for most
workers and does little in the short-term to address the state's massive debt.
The move was done in response to one of the worst-funded public retirement
systems in the country and in defiance of a powerful ...
The
Courier-Journal
Melissa
Quillen and Gina Stewart, who both work in public education over in Harlan County, both said they see the
Republican-led pension reforms
and the potential for further cuts to education as part of a larger
conservative effort to embrace charter schools. (Last year, the legislature –
controlled ...
Chief Investment Officer
The survey polled
200 institutional investors including endowments, foundations, and public
pensions earlier this month. 42% of survey respondents cited trade wars and
protectionism as the greatest risk to the global economy and markets over the
coming 12-24 months. 58% of all respondents expect ...
KFGO
According to
National Education Association estimates for 2016, Oklahoma ranked 48th,
followed by Mississippi at 49 and South Dakota at 50, in terms of average U.S.
classroom teacher salary. Oklahoma secondary school teachers had an annual mean
wage of $42,460 as of May 2016, according to ...
Mother Jones
“There are so many
people out there relying on nothing, people approaching retirement age with
$5,000, $10,000 saved. That's a crisis.” NAIFA's state lobbying has risen from
$20,000 in 2007 to $227,619 across seven states, including California and
Michigan, in 2016, according to the National Institute ...
Washington Post
To quantify the
effect of mandatory collective bargaining with teachers, I tracked teacher
salaries, the number of teachers hired, public spending on education, and
spending on non-wage things such as pensions and health benefits across all 50
states from 1919 to the present. Here are three things I ...
The Hill
The annual budget
process at our state and local governments is the traditional focus of much of
the public's attention. While much of the public discourse highlights tax
policy and spending priorities, this discussion tends to mask other underlying
issues that impact government operations. Three issues ...
Education Week
The majority of
public school teachers—85 percent, according to 2017 data from the U.S.
Department of Labor—are enrolled in what are called defined-benefit pension
plans. The main feature of these plans is that they promise a specific payout
to teachers upon retirement determined by a formula, ...
USA TODAY
Educators in West
Virginia and Oklahoma are lobbying for more pay while Kentucky's teachers are
fighting proposed changes to their pensions plans. West Virginia teachers
forced lawmakers to give them 5% raises. Using 2016 data, the National
Education Association ranked New York as the state with ...
National
Public Pension Coalition
Since
beginning his crusade against public
pensions, John Arnold has been relentless in his attacks on retirement
security for working families. Often, he pays others to do his dirty work for
him. For example, he funds biased research from the Pew Research Center. He has
also funded failed ballot ...
Reuters
NEW YORK, March 29
(Reuters) - The New Jersey Department of the Treasury said on Thursday that the
state's $78 billion public pension system had sold its last remaining
investment in any company that makes automatic and semi-automatic weapons for
civilian use. The state's Division of Investment ...
Pensions & Investments
The Colorado
Senate on Tuesday passed a bill designed to improve the funded status of the
$49 billion Colorado Public Employees' Retirement Association, Denver, and
lower its overall risk, confirmed Kira Mazzola, a spokeswoman for House
Majority Leader KC Becker who is co-sponsor of the bill, ...
Burlington Record
A strong public
retirement system is one of the most effective tools we have to attract and
retain talented, committed state employees. It's a promise our society makes to
those who take lower-paying jobs that advance the common good: If you forgo a
higher salary elsewhere to take a job teaching our kids ...
Bloomberg
The state hasn't
done a particularly good job running public pensions. According to S&P Global
Ratings, New Jersey's pension funding ratio is the worst in the nation, having
saved enough to cover about 31 percent of the benefits that have been promised.
The police and fire system is relatively strong by ...
Sacramento Bee
A series of calls
demanding that California public pension funds pull their money out of divisive
industries such as guns and fossil fuels is stirring opposition that could lead
to a contentious election for seats on the CalPERS Board of Administration this
year. Treasurer John Chiang, a member of the ...
Pensions & Investments
Just 50% of
institutional investors from endowments, foundations and public pension funds
feel "cautiously optimistic" they can achieve a return of the
consumer price index plus 5 percentage points over the next 10 years, a
Commonfund survey released Tuesday found. Commonfund surveyed 200 ...
U.S. News & World Report
The number of
active public sector workers per retiree has been falling. That ratio declined
to 1.42 in 2016 from 2.43 in 2001, according to a November 2017 National
Association of State Retirement Administrators (NASRA) Public Fund Survey. That
can boost pension costs when combined with a poorly ...
The Olympian
Washington's
public sector retirees should be proud of the work they have done to educate
lawmakers about the importance of stabilizing these pensions. According to the
National Institute on Retirement Security, there is an $8.95 economic output
for every dollar contributed by the state, cities, and ...
The Hill
As they write
these budgets and laws, I urge governors and state legislators to protect the
pensions of public employees like firefighters and teachers because cutting
them is a risky economic gamble, bad for our schools, and a betrayal of
fundamental American values. We need to get back to valuing ...
The Courier-Journal
As the debate over
Kentucky's underfunded public pension system rages in Frankfort, Kentucky's
teachers — who have flooded the state Capitol in growing numbers — say it's
important to remind the public that their pensions are critical because they
don't get Social Security most retirees depend on.
FOX40
SACRAMENTO —
Families of mass shooting victims are joining California State Treasurer John
Chiang in calling on the nation's largest public pension fund to stop investing
in companies that sell assault weapons and devices that allow guns to fire more
rapidly. Chiang spoke Monday at a board ...
Bloomberg
The California
Public Employees' Retirement System rarely divests unless mandated to by the
state legislature. In 2000, though, the pension fund voted to divest from
tobacco for internally managed portfolios and use tobacco-free benchmarks for
public equity and debt holdings. The pension system also ...
U.S. News & World Report
Chiang will be
joined family members of people who died in a 2015 shooting in San Bernardino,
Calf., at a meeting of the California Public Employees Retirement System,
Monday, March 19, 2018, calling on the nation's largest public pension fund to
stop investing in companies that sell assault-style ...
Planadviser.com
A bill was filed
with the Massachusetts Legislature that would require the state's public
pension fund to divest from companies that manufacture guns and ammunition.
“Divesting our public pension funds from gun and ammunition manufacturers sends
a clear message that we stand with the victims and ...
Chief Investment Officer
A strong 2017
investment performance means Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS) retirees will
see annuity increases of at least 2.4% beginning May 1, according to the
state's Department of Employee Trust Funds. The 2.4% adjustment will be
provided to all 203,000 WRS retirees, while approximately ...
Employee Benefit News
Joe Torsella,
treasurer for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is very concerned about the
retirement crisis in America and its impact on his state. When Congress or
state officials talk about retirement, most people assume they are talking
about public-sector pensions, he says. “But what's clear from the ...
