Public Pensions: Emerging Trends

Southern
Legislative
Conference
of
The Council of
State Governments
PUBLIC PENSIONS
EMERGING TRENDS
A FISCAL ALERT FROM THE SLC
Sujit CanagaRetna
Senior Fiscal Analyst

Southern Legislative Conference
July 2012
ublic pension systems continue to face significant challenges, a trend that has continued for more than a decade. While
public pension difficulties alone would not be a destabilizing force on the economy, the fact that every other element
of our nations retirement architecture also faces complex challenges
requires the urgent attention of policymakers at all levels of government. The funding difficulties facing the Social Security and Medicare systems; the rising funding gap at corporate pension plans; record
deficits at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (or PBGC, the
federal entity that insures the benefits of private pension plans); low
personal savings rate of so many Americans alongside the minimal
amounts they have set aside for retirement; the graying of America
with an increasing number of Americans now reaching retirement age
and living longer; and the aforementioned public pension challenges
cumulatively amount to a tsunami of red ink.
addendum that, since the end of fiscal year 2010, states have initiated
an unprecedented number of pension reforms and that these reforms,
along with strong investment gains and continued fiscal discipline,
will enhance the financial security of these public pension plans. Given the significant improvement in the equity markets, this recovery is
already evident in the portfolios of a number of public pension plans.
Two recent reports offer some guidance on the trajectory of public

pension plans. In March 2012, Wilshire Associates, the investment
consulting and services firm, released its 2012 Report on State Retirement Systems and in June 2012, the Pew Center on the States released The Widening Gap Update. The Wilshire Report indicates that
the ratio of assets-to-liabilities, or funding ratio, for all 126 state pension plans was 77 percent in 2011, up from an estimated 69 percent
in 2010. The report concluded that the improvement of the funding
ratio was driven by the strong global stock market performance in
the 12 months ending June 30, 2011. The conclusions in the Pew report were gloomier and noted the $1.38 trillion gap between states assets and their obligations for public sector retirement benefits in fiscal
year 2010, which included $757 billion in pension promises and $627
billion in retiree healthcare obligations. According to the Pew report,
only Wisconsin had fully funded its pension plan (100 percent) and
34 states were below the 80 percent threshold, the level experts urge
as representing a financially sound pension system. Among the states
with well-funded plans were North Carolina, South Dakota, Washington and, of course, Wisconsin, all funded at 95 percent or higher.
At the other end of the spectrum was Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky,
and Rhode Island, all funded below 55 percent.
One of the major drawbacks in evaluating public pension is the timeliness of the data, a limitation apparent in the Pew report, which references the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2010. This report includes
a particularly dark fiscal period for states when the rigors of the Great
Recession were particularly intense. In fact, the report included the
SERVING THE SOUTH
In calendar years 2009 through 2011, 43 states initiated reforms to stabilize their pension systems including:
Issuing pension obligation bonds;

Increasing employee contributions;
Revising automatic cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) increases;
Increasing age and vesting levels;
Lengthening the period that determ ines final average salary for
pension benefits;
Prohibiting any retirement benefit enhancements until the actuarial value of the systems assets reach 100 percent of actuarial funding liability;
Switching most active members to a hybrid plan with a lower defined benefit (DB) combined with a mandatory participation in a defined contribution (DC) plan;
Establishing a DC plan as an option for new members; and
Consolidating pension boards to effect greater oversight and economies of scale.
Beyond these measures, two other trends have surfaced in public pension circles in recent years that require attention: 1) governmentrun retirement plans for private sector employees and 2) cash benefit
plans, which include features of both a traditional DB pension and a
401(k)-style system.
Government-Run Retirement Plans For

Private Sector Employees
Having state pension funds run retirement plans for private sector
employees is an idea that catalyzed in Maryland five years ago. Since
that time, policymakers in over a dozen states (including California,
Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia
and Wisconsin) have discussed and even proposed legislation adopting a similar approach. At the local level, the comptroller of the city
THE SOUTHERN OFFICE OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE GOVERNMENTS

PO Box 98129 | Atlanta, Georgia 30359
ph: 404/633-1866 | fx: 404/633-4896 | www.slcatlanta.org
of New York, the nations largest local government, also has expressed
interest in the idea.
At the outset, it is important to stress that none of the proposals being
discussed or proposed require any public funds to be allocated to pay
for private sector retirement plans. The funds managed for private
companies would be kept strictly separate from the monies managed
for public sector employees. Specifically, the proposals revolve around
permitting the state retirement system to administer retirement plans
for these private sector individuals by collecting their pension contributions and overseeing the portfolio managers administering these
accounts. Supporters of the measure indicate that economies of scale
would ensure that administrative costs would be kept to a minimum.
In fact, in a large state like California, the opportunity to bring in a
significant number of private workers of varying ages enhances the
likelihood of the plan riding out market downturns and faring well
in the long term.
The impetus to offer an option for private sector employees to participate in a state-administered retirement plan springs from two important trends related to private sector pensions: 1) the pension plans in
an increasing number of private companies are in serious financial difficulty and 2) an increasing number of Americans have failed to save
adequately for retirement.
At the end of 2011, pension plan assets at S&P 500 companies covered
only 74 percent of estimated liabilities, a deficit of roughly $450 billion. In addition, in fiscal year 2011, the PBGCs deficit increased to $26
billion, an increase from the $23 billion in the prior year. In its role as
the insurer of private pension plans, the PBGC already is responsible
for the retirement benefits of about 1.5 million Americans. Its obligations for these and other purposes totaled $107 billion in fiscal year
2011. A corollary to this trend is that an increasing number of private
companies simply are discontinuing their pension plans or not offering retirement benefits at all.
The Washington, D.C.-based Employee Benefit Research Institute, an
organization that seeks the development of employee benefit programs
and sound public policy through research and education, notes in its
2012 Retirement Confidence Survey that a mere 14 percent of American
workers are confident that they have sufficient funds to live comfortably in retirement. More disturbingly, the survey reported that many
workers have virtually no savings and investments, and a dismal 60
percent of workers reported the total value of their households savings
and investments, excluding the value of their primary home and any
defined benefit plan, as less than $25,000. Also of interest is the surveys
finding that 81 percent of eligible workers (or 38 percent of all workers) contribute to an employer sponsored retirement savings plan, such
as a 401(k). John Liu, New York City Comptroller, became interested
in government-run retirement plans for private sector employees after realizing that the metropolis was in the early stages of a burgeoning
retirement crisis, given that more than a third of all retirement-age
households had nothing to rely on except Social Security.
Given these twin trends, legislators in the aforementioned states have
pursued enhancing the retirement security of private sector workers
without company established retirement plans, not only for the individuals benefit, but also to mitigate the likelihood that these individuals will seek public assistance during retirement. In Wisconsin, state
Senator Dave Hansen has proposed a separate but equal system for
non-government workers such as small business owners and farmers.

Similarly, in California, state Senator Kevin DeLeon sponsored legislation that would create a state-run, privately insured plan for private
workers in companies that do not offer retirement benefits, and calls
for private employees contributing 3 percent of their wages to deliver the sort of safe returns found in long-term U.S. Treasury bonds. He
maintains that there is a crucial difference between his proposal and
the DB pensions provided to state employees by the states giant public
sector retirement plans (CalPERS and CalSTRS): the private employee pensions are designed as modest supplements to retiree Social Security benefits. The point is simply to improve the safety net that Social
Security provides, keeping more people from relying on state aid. In
contrast, the CalPERS and CalSTRS pensions are designed to sustain
career state employees after retirement.
Cash Balance Plans

Another trend that has surfaced in several states in recent years, most
notably in Louisiana, Kansas, Maryland, Montana and Pennsylvania,
is cash balance plans, which contain features of both a traditional DB
system and a 401(k)-style system. One of the first states to move to a
cash balance system was Nebraska. In 2003, the state shifted all new
hires to the cash balance plan, a fairly uncommon approach among
public retirement systems at the time. While both employees and the
state contribute to individual accounts, the plan is administered by the
states retirement agency, the Nebraska Public Employees Retirement
Systems. The state contributes $1.56 for every dollar the employee
contributes and the state guarantees that each account will earn at least
5 percent a year. During a period when investment earnings are strong
and the plan meets minimum funding requirements, the retirement
system pays out an annual dividend to employees in the plan. Importantly, the state does not pay for automatic COLA increases, though
employees may finance this out of their retirement accounts. The fact
that the state retirement system manages the investments for employees is an appealing feature to employees that have neither the expertise
nor the discipline to competently manage their accounts. Upon retirement, employees have the option of claiming their individual retirement accounts as an annuity, lump sum, rollover or a combination of
these approaches.
While states have the potential to save significant amounts of money
by moving to the cash balance system adopted in Nebraska (as much
as $1 billion annually, according to a study in Maryland), there is speculation on whether it provides an adequate source of retirement income. If the goal is to provide supplementary income to other sources
of retirement income, it might be appropriate. However, the Maryland study noted that a state worker earning $40,000 a year and saving the maximum allowed amount would exhaust their entire account
13 years after retiring. From the state perspective, the opportunity for
employees to inflate their final three years of salary through spiking
(sick leave, overtime, promotions, last-minute raises) is eliminated
since retirement payments are not based on a formula, a development
that generates savings for the state.
In conclusion, states continue to face significant challenges in grappling with public pensions but, importantly, policymakers continue
to devise solutions to mitigate the adverse consequences of these difficulties. Since unfunded pension liabilities are long-term liabilities that
do not require resolution in a year or two, continued state action to
enhance the retirement architecture of all Americans remains critical.

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Southern

Senior Fiscal Analyst

Two recent reports offer some guidance on the trajectory of public

SERVING THE SOUTH

Issuing pension obligation bonds;

Government-Run Retirement Plans For

THE SOUTHERN OFFICE OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE GOVERNMENTS

non-government workers such as small business owners and farmers.

Cash Balance Plans

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