Requiring timely payment in full of every employer’s actuarially determined annual required contribution is among the hallmarks of pension fund probity, in both the public and private sectors. Unlike many of its counterparts in other states, the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System (NYSTRS) has always lived up to that high standard. Until now. Read More
A new national study estimates that New York’s two largest state-level pension systems have unfunded liabilities of at least $260 billion, using an alternative calculation method that estimates pension liabilities using more conservative interest rate assumptions... Read More
The statewide teachers union is celebrating a court ruling that, in contravention of long-established precedents, would allow the New York State Teachers Retirement System to treat the identities of its pension recipients as confidential information. The Empire Center will be seeking leave to appeal the case, as our director, Tim Hoefer, announced yesterday. Read More
OK—I admit it. Those protestors outside our pension reform event in Albany today did get one thing right. I do think people need to “gamble” some of their retirement savings on Wall Street. Read More
Public pension funds in New York and across the country are continuing to rely on overly optimistic assumptions about their future investment gains, as detailed in a major New York Times story yesterday. Read More
Opponents of Governor Cuomo’s 2 percent property tax cap were able to stick one major exclusion into the legislation before it passed in 2011: a provision excluding a portion of local government and school employee pensions from the total allowable “levy limit” in years when taxpayer-funded employer contributions rise by more than two percentage points of salaries. Read More
State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has marked the beginning of Labor Day weekend by announcing the next wave of increases in taxpayer-funded pension costs for local governments throughout the state (except New York City, which has separate systems). Read More
The New York State Teachers’ Retirement System (NYSTRS) has officially confirmed pretty much what it predicted last fall: the taxpayer-financed pension contribution rate payable in the fall of 2015 will rise to 17.53 percent of teacher payrolls, or 1.28 percent above the contribution payable this coming September. Read More