Many Workers in
Public Sector Retiring Sooner
New York Times
Still, even with lingering queasiness over jobs and the larger economy, there
are other signs that the mood of public workers is turning toward retirement, a
worrisome possibility for some already precarious, underfunded pension plans. ...
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Will Pension Plans Run Out of Money?
Governing
Munnell's Boston College (BC) team has studied the implications of proposed
governmental accounting standards on the reported financial condition and funding
status of 126 public pension plans.
On the face of it, you'd think this stuff would
be about ...
Pension costs will pinch
Virginia Gazette
The Virginia Retirement System, including pensions for state employees and
teachers, is underfunded by $19 billion. The plan is only 70.6% funded for
state employees and 66.6% for
teachers. Pension plans are considered
adequately funded when 80% of ...
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Rhode Island's
Landmark Pension Reforms
Governing
Rhode Island's state pension plan
is a mess, with very serious underfunding. This legislation addresses that problem
but leaves the dozens of municipal plans to fend for themselves.
That's unfortunate, because many of those local systems are clearly in ...
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Texas Teacher Pension-Fund Investments Lost 7% in Third Quarter
BusinessWeek
8 (Bloomberg) -- The 1.3 million-member Texas Teacher Retirement System lost 7 percent on investments in the third
quarter, a consultant to the plan
said, citing an underweight position in US Treasury securities. Including
payouts and contributions, ...
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States expand
lucrative pensions to more jobs
Tucson Citizen
The growth of early retirement has helped fuel massive deficits in some of the
nation's largest public pension plans,
including the main California and Florida retirement systems. The deficits led
36 states in the past two years to take cost-control ...
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No Virginia,
there is no sanity clause
By
Phil Drake
The proposed new guidelines still would mean “a plan
can improve its GASB funding status literally by burning money,” according to
one expert. Pension officials, can “improve
their GASB funding status simply by taking on more risk, despite ...
Montana Watchdog
IPERS should be
converted to deal with underfunding
DesMoinesRegister.com
Private companies have experienced first hand the problems inherent in defined
benefit pension plans. Many private
companies have switched to defined contribution plans, such as 401(k)s, where
employers pay an agreed upon periodic amount into each ...
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Wean public
sector off pensions
Arizona Republic
... police and firefighters --
should be placed in 401(k)s like the private sector. Taxpayers could match
dollar for their dollar up to 8 percent. This is far better than employees get
in the private sector. Most do not even have any retirement plans.
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Editorial:
Teacher pension fund fails
The Huntsville Times -
al.com (blog)
The retirement plan gets less
from the state if returns exceed 8 percent. The Birmingham News' David White reported
that investment returns on those assets for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30
were only 1.81 percent compared to the median of 2.15 ...
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State risks talent
drain by reducing benefits, JLARC says
Richmond Times
Dispatch
The study found that compensation for state employees ranked last in a comparison
with 15 major employers who compete for the same talent. with other employers
because of benefits such as the retirement
plan, especially for state employees hired before ...
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Switch From
Traditional Pension to 401(k)?
Not So Fast.
aiCIO
A small number of states have, in fact, made the switch from defined benefit to
defined contribution pension plans
for their public employees. One—Michigan—did so in 1997, a move which has saved
the state upwards of $4 billion, according to at least ...
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Do 401(k)s
Match Traditional Pensions?
U.S. News & World
Report (blog)
Those flaws were the reason Congress enacted the Employee Retirement Income Security
Act of 1974, commonly known as ERISA. It mandated extensive employee protections
in private pension plans. And in
an effort to improve those plans, ERISA also produced ...
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Stanford think
tank: Pension costs skyrocketing
San Jose Mercury News
California's public employee pension
plans face long-term shortfalls as high as $500 billion as costs skyrocket
each day, a Stanford University-based economic think tank said Tuesday in a
report that critics assailed as relying on faulty data to ...
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Retirement Fears Jump the Wealth Gap
MarketWatch (press
release)
42% for women), people who have investable assets of $250000 or more (56%)
versus those with $100000 to $250000 (37%), and those with detailed written retirement plans (52%). Members of the
media can obtain a full study by contacting Amy Hyland Jones ...
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7-8 Percent Pension Returns Are Not "Hopeful"
Business Insider
It noted that pension returns have been very low in recent years and then commented:
"Pension plans hope to make
up these lost years and reach performance targets that in some cases are still
set at a hopeful 7 to 8 percent a year. ...
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401K or Pension: Bill would make state workers
decide
The bill
would require employees covered by state pension plans to
decide whether to remain in the pension plan or
convert to a 401(k) system. Workers who choose to remain in the pension plan would have to contribute
4 percent of their ...
Up North Live - Local News
Fixing the pension plan | The Herald - Rock Hill,
SC
South
Carolina's state pension system,
like many others around the nation, is unsustainable. Lawmakers need to revise
the benefits package to avoid a fiscal ...
www.heraldonline.com/2011/12/.../fixing-the-pension-plan.ht...
Governor seeks
$2.2 billion for pension plans
Richmond Times
Dispatch
Bob McDonnell said today he will propose $2.2 billion in additional state and
local funding for state employee and teacher retirement plans to cover long-term pension obligations. McDonnell,
speaking on "Ask the Governor" on WRVA 1140 AM radio this ...
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Poll Finds
Boomers Less Optimistic About Retirement
Consumer Affairs
Despite the wide-spread availability of 401(k) retirement plans in the last two decades, only 39 percent of
near-retirees expect these tax-deferred funds to be a major source of
retirement income. Perhaps because of that, only 25 percent say they ...
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Pension plans should assume realistic returns
Sacramento Bee
By Joe Nation Earlier this week, we issued a report identifying the shortfalls
at CalPERS, CalSTRS and the University of California retirement plan. The report shows cumulative shortfalls that vary
depending on assumptions about investment rates of ...
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DiNapoli Proposes
Commission to Address Retirement
aiCIO
"The Commission must develop strategies to assure the continued viability
of solid, well-funded defined benefit public pension plans and identify strategies to restore the finances of
plans that have fallen into disrepair, DiNapoli stated in a ...
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Digging a pension hole
Chicago Tribune
The agreement that was supposed to steady the system is in tatters and the
state's pension plans are
running dangerously low on funds, casualties of neglect and political machinations
in Springfield. At the center of the crisis is the state's pension ...
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Illinois' TRS
goes higher-risk with investments
Crain's Chicago
Business
Kellogg's Mr. Rauh estimates Illinois pension
plans will run dry by 2018, even if they chalk up 8% returns and the
state contributes enough to cover newly accrued liabilities. "There's a
school of thought that if you are very aggressive (in investing) ...
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Excellent news
for Illinois teachers: worst-funded retirement system ...
By
directorblue
The Illinois Teachers' Retirement System — the worst-funded major pension plan in the U.S. — is
pumping more of its assets into higher-risk investments while using accounting
methods that some pension experts say understate its funding ...
Doug Ross @ Journal
Henes: NYC is Pension Model for 21st Century?
CNBC.com
New York City is attempting to restructure the governance of its pension plans, which have more than
$100 billion under management. Since the economic crisis began, the media has
focused its attention on the underfunding of public pension plans, ...
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Nebraska
Troopers file lawsuit against the state
The Republic
More than 400 current and former Nebraska State Troopers have filed a federal
lawsuit accusing lawmakers of violating their labor contract by forcing them to
pay more into their pension plan.
The lawsuit alleges that when the Legislature increased ...
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GASB Update:
Latest News on Overall Process ...
By
Leigh Snell, Federal Relations Director
In response to its Exposure Drafts containing proposed changes to the accounting
and financial reporting for pensions by plan sponsors and to the financial
reporting for pension plans by the plans themselves,
GASB received 645 comment ...
Federal E-News
State Auditor
Otto Releases Pension Investment
Report
FireEngineering.com
State Auditor Rebecca Otto today released the Large Public Pension Plan Investment Report, which
reviews the investment performance of Minnesota's large public pension plans for the year ended
December 31, 2010. The individual large public pension ...
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