The New York State Teachers’ Retirement System (NYSTRS) has retained Cheiron, an actuarial and financial consultancy with a national practice, to analyze Governor Cuomo’s proposal to give school districts a “flat rate” option for pension contributions.
The NYSTRS communications office provided this description of the scope of the study, which is due March 8:
With respect to the scope of services, Cheiron will provide NYSTRS its independent study, including a statement of actuarial opinion, analyzing the flat rate proposal in order to address the following two issues as they relate to NYSTRS:
1. Is the flat-rate proposal actuarially sound?
2. Provide analysis of various scenarios provided by NYSTRS.
Further, Cheiron’s study must include projections of System assets and liabilities for many years in the future and include stochastic modeling in which the results of thousands of different future scenarios are analyzed.
The results should be interesting. **UPDATE: NYSTRS says Cheiron’s proposed estimated fee is $40,231.**
The Division of the Budget worked up Cuomo’s proposal with the help of the Milliman, another nationwide consulting firm. Milliman renewed a five-year, $500,000 actuarial consulting services contract with DOB last fall, according to the state comptroller’s Open Book NY website. DOB has not released any consultant’s reports or analyses used to develop the governor’s pension proposal.
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