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Author: Virginia. General Assembly. Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Civil service
Languages : en
Pages : 154
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Book Description
Author: Virginia. General Assembly. Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Civil service
Languages : en
Pages : 154
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: United States Government Accountability Office
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781976205835
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 32
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Book Description
Pension and other retiree benefits for state and local government employees represent liabilities for state and local governments and ultimately a burden for state and local taxpayers. Since 1986, accounting standards have required state and local governments to report their unfunded pension liabilities. Recently, however, standards changed and now call for governments also to report retiree health liabilities. The extent of these liabilities nationwide is not yet known, but some predict they will be very large, possibly exceeding a trillion dollars in present value terms. The federal government has an interest in assuring that all Americans have a secure retirement, as reflected in the federal tax deferral for contributions to both public and private pension plans. Consequently, the GAO was asked to examine: 1) the key measures of the funded status of retiree benefits and 2) the current funded status of retiree benefits. GAO analyzed data on public pensions, reviewed current literature, and interviewed a range of experts on public retiree benefits, actuarial science, and accounting. Three key measures help to understand different aspects of the funded status of state and local government pension and other retiree benefits. First, governments' annual contributions indicate the extent to which governments are keeping up with the benefits as they are accumulating. Second, the funded ratio indicates the percentage of actuarially accrued benefit liabilities covered by the actuarial value of assets. Third, unfunded actuarial accrued liabilities indicate the excess, if any, of liabilities over assets in dollars. Governments have been reporting these three measures for pensions for years, but new accounting standards will also require governments to report the same for retiree health benefits. Because a variety of methods and actuarial assumptions are used to calculate the funded status, different plans cannot be easily compared. Currently, most state and local government pension plans have enough invested resources set aside to keep up with the benefits they are scheduled to pay over the next several decades, but governments offering retiree health benefits generally have large unfunded liabilities. Many experts consider a funded ratio of about 80 percent or better to be sound for government pensions. We found that 58 percent of 65 large pension plans were funded to that level in 2006, a decrease since 2000. Low funded ratios would eventually require the government employer to improve funding, for example, by reducing benefits or by increasing contributions. However, pension benefits are generally not at risk in the near term because current assets and new contributions may be sufficient to pay benefits for several years. Still, many governments have often contributed less than the amount needed to improve or maintain funded ratios. Low contributions raise concerns about the future funded status. For retiree health benefits, studies estimate that the total unfunded actuarial accrued liability for state and local governments lies between $600 billion and $1.6 trillion in present value terms. The unfunded liabilities are large because governments typically have not set aside any funds for the future payment of retiree health benefits as they have for pensions. Percentage of State and Local Pension Plans with Funded Ratios above or below 80 Percent Source: GAO analysis of PFS, PENDAT data.Percentage of plansFiscal yearFunded ratio 80 percent or moreFunded ratio less than 80 percent020406080100200620052004200320022001200019961994
Author: Kansas. Legislature. Legislative Council. Research Department
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Civil service
Languages : en
Pages : 32
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Book Description
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Education and the Workforce. Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 100
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Book Description
Author: Tax Foundation
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Civil service
Languages : en
Pages : 84
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Author: Bernard Jump
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Local officials and employees
Languages : en
Pages : 41
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Book Description
Author: Daniel Ryan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781953294043
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 82
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Book Description
Updated for 2021An estimated 6.5 million state and local government employees do not participate in Social Security. In some states, virtually no public employees are in Social Security. Nationwide, many school teachers and others at fire/police/EMS are excluded. In order to plan for the future, these public servants need to know how their total retirement benefits are impacted.In addition to being out of the Social Security system for as long as thirty years, the affected workers will have the Social Security benefits that they earned from private sector jobs calculated using modified formulas that take into account their public service careers. These special provisions are surrounded by confusion, suspicion, and in some cases, anger on the part of public employees.But it doesn't have to be that way. Be prepared to learn all you need to know about how this works. In the end, you will be your own expert on this vital subject."Social Security for State and Local Government Employees" examines why some workers are not covered by Social Security at their government or education jobs, covers the basics of Social Security, reviews two key federal rules that impact workers who earn pensions from work outside of Social Security coverage, reinforces the reader's knowledge through a discussion of commonplace rumors about the subject and concludes with a wrap-up Q&A.
Author: USA Government Accountability Office
Publisher: Nova Science Publishers
ISBN: 9781604566055
Category : Civil service
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Over the past half-century, the number of state and local government workers has grown significantly. In 2006, this sector accounted for about 12 percent of the nation's workforce. Since 1996, accounting standards calling for state and local governments to report their liabilities for future pension costs have been in place, but standards calling for similar treatment of the future costs of retiree health benefits have only recently been issued. It is unclear as yet, what actions state and local governments may take once the future costs of these benefits are known. However, future decisions about the appropriate levels of benefits for retirees will likely occur in a broader context of persistent fiscal challenges that state and local governments will face in the next decade. Hence, concerns have been raised about the public sector's capacity to meet the rising cost of providing its retirees with promised pension and other post-employment benefits, such as retiree health care. State and local retiree benefits are not subject, for the most part, to federal laws governing private sector retiree benefits. Nevertheless, there is a federal interest in ensuring that all Americans have a secure retirement, an interest that is reflected in preferential tax treatment for contributions and investment earnings associated with qualified pension plans in both the public and the private sectors. This is an excerpted and indexed edition.
Author: Government Accountability Office
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781492228493
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 54
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Book Description
There are over 3,400 state and local pension systems in the United States, according to the most recent Census Bureau Survey of State and Local Public-Employee Retirement Systems. Most large plans are state plans, and more state and local employees are covered by state-administered plans than by locally-administered plans (about 24 million members and beneficiaries compared with about 3 million). However, there are more local government employees than state government employees (about 14 million compared with about 5 million), and while local governments sometimes participate in plans administered by states, the local governments generally retain responsibility for contributing the employer's share of funding to the plans for their employees. As a result, local governments contribute more to pension plans each state fiscal year, overall, than do state governments.
Author: Alicia H. Munnell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0815724136
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 266
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Book Description
In the wake of the financial crisis and Great Recession, the health of state and local pension plans has emerged as a front burner policy issue. Elected officials, academic experts, and the media alike have pointed to funding shortfalls with alarm, expressing concern that pension promises are unsustainable or will squeeze out other pressing government priorities. A few local governments have even filed for bankruptcy, with pensions cited as a major cause. Alicia H. Munnell draws on both her practical experience and her research to provide a broad perspective on the challenge of state and local pensions. She shows that the story is big and complicated and cannot be viewed through a narrow prism such as accounting methods or the role of unions. By examining the diversity of the public plan universe, Munnell debunks the notion that all plans are in trouble. In fact, she finds that while a few plans are basket cases, many are functioning reasonably well. Munnell's analysis concludes that the plans in serious trouble need a major overhaul. But even the relatively healthy plans face three challenges ahead: an excessive concentration of plan assets in equities; the risk that steep benefit cuts for new hires will harm workforce quality; and the constraints plans face in adjusting future benefits for current employees. Here, Munnell proposes solutions that preserve the main strengths of state and local pensions while promoting needed reforms.
