{"id":1330,"date":"2011-03-02T15:30:01","date_gmt":"2011-03-03T00:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/?p=1330"},"modified":"2011-05-02T12:09:23","modified_gmt":"2011-05-02T20:09:23","slug":"retirement-system-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/?p=1330","title":{"rendered":"Alaska Public Retirement System Challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/PERS-TRS-Review.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1331\" title=\"PERS-TRS Review\" src=\"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/PERS-TRS-Review-300x242.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"273\" height=\"222\" \/><\/a>Recently the Senate Finance Committee\u00a0received a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/gavelalaska.org\/media\/?media_id=SFIN110224A\" target=\"_blank\">briefing<\/a> on the status of Alaska\u2019s public retirement system.<\/p>\n<p>The state <a href=\"http:\/\/doa.alaska.gov\/drb\/programs\/programs.html\" target=\"_blank\">retirement and benefits program<\/a> supports nearly 70,000 Alaskans, and constitute our state\u2019s largest public trust accounts.\u00a0 During the past ten years, Alaska\u2019s retirement system has faced several complex and daunting financial challenges.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to understand the significant liabilities our state\u2019s pension system faces, and the reforms the legislature adopted.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ensuring the health of Alaska\u2019s public retirement system has been one of my top legislative priorities. In 2005, I took a lead role changing the state\u2019s retirement plan and establishing the defined contribution\u00a0system for teachers and public employees. At the time, our state\u2019s retirement system faced a surprising $5.7 billion unfunded pension liability.\u00a0 In response, the legislature has taken a series of decisive steps to address the problem.<\/p>\n<p>Over the last 7 years, the legislature has deposited $1.6 billion into the PERS\/TRS retirement trusts. We also capped local retirement contributions at 22% of payroll.\u00a0\u00a0 This helped prevent excessive employer contribution rates from devastating school budgets and crippling Alaskan communities. Providing this financial relief also averted substantial increases in property taxes on Alaskans.<\/p>\n<p>Despite significant reforms, our state&#8217;s pension system remains only 63% funded for public employees (<a href=\"http:\/\/doa.alaska.gov\/drb\/pers\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">PERS<\/a>) and 54% funded for teachers (<a href=\"http:\/\/doa.alaska.gov\/drb\/trs\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">TRS<\/a>).\u00a0 Alaska\u2019s unfunded pension liability is\u00a0over $11 billion. For the FY12 budget, the state\u2019s required contribution will be another $478 million, an increase of $120 million over last year. Within 10 years, the state\u2019s required payment is expected to exceed $1 billion annually.\u00a0 While the Legislature is responsible for funding these public benefits, their cost is shared by every Alaskan and I do not support reversing the positive reforms we\u2019ve made to the retirement system.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s critical that we attract and retain excellent teachers and public employees.\u00a0 We owe these hardworking employees competitive salaries and good benefits. Alaska has been a leader amongst other states in establishing a defined contribution plan that accomplishes both. Our <a href=\"http:\/\/doa.alaska.gov\/drb\/dcrp\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">plan<\/a> offers generous health benefits and gives employees the freedom to select a variety of financial options to manage their own retirement investments.\u00a0 It also gives\u00a0Alaskans\u00a0the right to take their savings with them should they decide to leave public employment.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m glad we reviewed these important issues as a committee, and look forward to working with colleagues to address the liabilities Alaska faces in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently the Senate Finance Committee heard a presentation on the status of Alaska\u2019s public retirement system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7,50],"class_list":["post-1330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-bert-stedman","tag-public-retirement-system"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1330"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1495,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1330\/revisions\/1495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}