A plan to gradually shift ongoing pension costs to state universities and community colleges surfaced in the Illinois House Thursday and could be the model for shifting pension costs for K-12 schools.

Dissatisfied with state pension reforms enacted last year that affect 1.8 million current and former government workers, Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel says without more changes "there will be nothing left at the end of the rainbow" when public employees retire.

Gov. Mary Fallin wanted to consolidate Oklahoma's half-dozen employee pension funds, but did not happen this year.

For the first time in recent years, New York state's pension fund exceeded its target rate of return, but E.J. McMahon, an analyst with the conservative Empire Center, cautioned that worse-than-targeted performance in recent years means the fund lost out on gains it should have booked.

Illinois got a good deal on a $300 million bond sale today, illustrating what happens when the Chicago economy and not the state's pension obligations drive how investors look at the state's creditworthiness.

In the state capitol, it's a battle over two bills, competing proposals brought forward by two of the state's top democrats to deal with our nearly $100 billion dollar pension problem.

Hawaii lawmakers took modest steps to address the state's record $25-billion in unfunded liabilities during the 2012 and 2013 legislative sessions but taxpayer watchdogs are critical that not enough is being done to address looming debts.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has put local government officials on notice that it is closely monitoring the way they describe their cities' fiscal health, charging Harrisburg, Pa., with securities fraud for allegedly failing to disclose information on its financial troubles.

State Treasurer Janet Cowell, the pension fund's sole trustee, wants more flexibility on asset allocation.

Gov. Tom Corbett described a stark choice: Without overhaul, he said, growing pension costs will crowd out funding for education, public safety and other government functions.

To be fully funded, Delaware must increase its annual contribution to the pension system based on a market valuation of plan liabilities. This paper analyzes Delaware’s pension system on a fair-market or government- guaranteed basis, with reference to the average US Treasury rate on 10- and 20-year bonds in June 2012. A discussion of the discrepancy between current government accounting conventions and the fair-market value approach and the implications for plan management follows.

Wilshire Consulting estimates that the ratio of pension assets-to-liabilities, or funding ratio, for all 134 state pension plans was 73% in 2012, down from an estimated 77% in 2011. This deterioration in funding ratio was fueled by global stock market volatility in the twelve months ending June 30, 2012. Growth in fund assets could not keep up with growth in plan liabilities over fiscal 2012.

Was the slow recovery of the U.S. economy from the trough of the Great Recession anticipated? 

Alternative views on the problem the United States is facing: financing retirement consumption as its population ages.

Recent years have witnessed intense pension reform efforts in countries around the globe, often involving an increased use of funded pension programmes managed by the private sector. These funded arrangements are likely to play an increasingly important role in delivering retirement income in many countries and privately managed pension assets will play an increasing role in financial markets, notably as a source of long-term savings.

Published annually since 2005 by the The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development  (OECD) Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs, Pension Markets in Focus provides accurate, comprehensive, comparable and up-to-date statistics to help policy makers, regulators and market participants measure, compare and evaluate programme developments and country experiences globally.

Calculation of the increases in contributions required to achieve full funding of state and local pension
systems in the U.S. over 30 years. Without policy changes, contributions must increase by a factor of 2.5, reaching 14.1% of the total own-revenue generated by state and local governments.
This represents a tax increase of $1,385 per household per year.

New York taxpayers spend billions of dollars a year on health insurance coverage for retired state and local government employees, many of whom are too young to be eligible for Medicare. But the mounting "pay-as-you-go" bill for retiree healthcare is just the tip of a much larger iceberg. Thanks to a new government accounting standard, the true cost of this long-term entitlement is finally emerging from the depths of state and local finances.

Unfunded employee pension obligations will present a serious fiscal problem to state and local governments in the not too distant future. This article takes a looks at the causes and potential cures for the public pension mess, mainly through the lens of legal doctrines that limit public employers' ability to avoid obligations.

Girard Miller's presentation at the National Conference of State Legislators in Chicago August 2012.

If public pension fund assets were indexed to relevant markets rather than actively managed, the public pension systems in Maryland and across the united States would save enormous amounts of money on fees, without undue harm to investment performance.

The long-term problem can be addressed by encouraging local governments to place all new employees in 401(k)-style "defined contribution" plans rather than General Motors-style "defined benefit" plans, and to encourage current employees to convert to defined contribution plans as well. This would help ensure that the present costs of government are funded in present budgets.

Georgia should continue to push the reforms that have made this one of the best managed states in the nation, but innovation is the best opportunity for true reform. Tax, regulatory and tort reform will create the right conditions for innovation in the private sector while the state pursues innovation in the areas of criminal justice, education and heath care.

If state and education employees really want fairness, they can certainly keep more of their monthly paychecks, reduce contributions to their retirement and switch to a sensible defined contribution plan like the lion's share of Alabamians.

Opening up the NDPERS's defined-contribution (DC) plan to all workers would have a dramatic impact on the system's bottom line. A DC plan, similar to a 401k plan, would allow the employees and the employer to contribute a defined amount of salaries and wages - say, the current 8.12% - but the state would not have to worry about ensuring the viability of the system.

A guide to needed reforms in pensions, taxes and higher education, among other areas, with  two types of goals that are important when working towards limiting government: long-term policy objectives that show the end-game goals and short-term policies that steer public policy towards the long-term goals. This guide provides both.

Converting these statistics into actual budget savings involves a combination of straightforward "eat your vegetables" cuts, and process innovations like privatization that generate savings through "second-order" incentive changes throughout the system.

Shifting public pensions from defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans could generate higher returns for pensioners while limiting the risk to the public when pensions do not perform well.

Ten ideas to cut waste and balance the buget without raising taxes, including more efficient K-12 funding, spending high education tax dollars more wisely and rein in state employee salaries and benefits.

In light of Oregon facing a budget crisis, the Taxpayer Foundation has issued a master list of budget balancing ideas that do not require raising taxes. These ideas have been collected from Oregon lawmakers, think tank groups, taxpayer organizations, unions, policy analysts, Democrats, Republicans and even ideas utilized in states across the nation.

This study focuses on the retiree health plan administered by the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association (PERA). The PERA Health Care Program is a cost sharing multiple-employer plan. The “employers” in this context are the various governments that hire most public employees, such as public school teachers, fire fighters, police officers and state employees. Under this program, PERA subsidizes a portion of the premium for health care coverage, and the retiree pays any remaining amount of that premium. The Colorado legislature created the Health Care Trust Fund in 1999 to provide state subsidies to the Health Care Program.