This op-ed originally appeared in The Buffalo News on June 09, 2019. The politicization of pensions continues plaguing our state. In a misguided effort to fight climate change, State Sen. Liz Krueger introduced Senate bill 2126, the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act, earlier this year. This prompted an open letter from New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, urging Krueger to reconsider […]
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IPFI Opposes NY Fossil Fuel Divestment Act
Institute for Pension Fund Integrity Opposes New York Senate Bill 2126, the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act The Institute for Pension Fund Integrity has authored a letter of opposition to New York State Senator Liz Krueger and New York Assembly Assistant Speaker Felix Ortiz to express the organization’s position against the proposed Fossil Fuel Divestment […]
CalPERS Chooses Prudent Management Over Politics Earning Praise From Pension Warriors
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 19, 2019 CalPERS Chooses Prudent Management Over Politics Earning Praise From Pension Warriors During the monthly CalPERS Investment Committee meeting, the board members voted to support the staff recommendation to oppose AB 33, which would require the divestment of funds from private prisons. WASHINGTON, D.C. – In part driven by […]
North Dakota Public Employee Retirement System
The North Dakota state pension fund is 65 percent funded, with 2.5 billion dollars in unfunded liabilities. There are 21,091 active members of the North Dakota PERS system, with 36, 573 total members. The ND public employee pension requires a six-percent employee contribution rate and there is no mandatory retirement age. There is however a […]
Connecticut State Retirement System
Connecticut holds the second highest debt per-capita rate in the United States at $35, 721. Unfunded pension liabilities rose from 99.2 billion in the 2016 ALEC study to 127.7 billion in 2017, a one-year increase of 28 billion. The state will be paying over 6 billion to the teacher’s retirement system alone by 2032 if […]
South Carolina State Retirement Systems
South Carolina Retirement Systems currently hold $24 billion in pension debt and unfunded liabilities The South Carolina pension crisis has been accredited to bad investing- the fund has underperformed their target returns by $10 billion while the state has paid more than $3 billion to Wall Street money managers South Carolina allows for early retirements, […]
North Carolina State Retirement Systems
The State of North Carolina boasts one of the most stable pension systems in the United States at 92% funded The return rate for the $98.3 billion pension fund for 2017 was 13.5%, a high rate accredited to responsible investing by the state treasurer and pension management The State of North Carolina was able to […]
Kentucky Retirement Systems
The State of Kentucky is more than $33 billion in debt, holding just $16 billion in total assets The State retirement and health benefits system holds the retirement accounts of 360,000 state workers The state retirement board in 2011 opted to invest in high-risk hedge funds instead of low-risk long term investments that are common […]
California State Pension System (CalPERS and CalSTRS)
The California State Pension system lost more than $100 Billion dollars in the 2008 financial crisis and has still not fully recovered The League of California Cities released a report claiming that pension costs are expected to rise more than 50% by 2024-2025. This would mean that 16 percent of the annual budget for the […]
Illinois State Retirement Fund
Total state pension debt sits at $203 Billion State Government Debt: $152.6 Billion Local Government Debt: $50.8 Billion dollars Total Pension debt equates to $41,000 of pension debt per household in Illinois Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that state employee pension agreements could not be modified, meaning that Illinois is on the hook for full […]