Tag: pennsylvania budget

Pennsylvania Pension Officials Defend Investment Strategy After Governor Calls for Overhaul

one dollar bill

Last week, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf released his first budget proposal.

Wolf has said many times that he doesn’t support a full overhaul of the state’s pension system. But his budget did contain some pension-related changes.

Wolf is calling for the state’s pension funds to take a more passive approach to investing and to cut down the fees it pays to managers. The proposal was short on specifics but called for the funds to “prudently maximize future investment returns through cost effective investment strategies.”

PhillyDeals columnist Joseph N. DiStefano talked to spokesman for the state’s two pension funds – SERS and PSERS – and got their official reactions to the budget proposal.

SERS reaction:

“We are working to gather details on the Governor’s plan, so I can’t speak to it specifically,” SERS spokeswoman Pamela Hile told me. “What I can tell you is that last year, a little more than 0.5% of the total fund value went to management fees. This, in the view of the Board, does not represent an excessive amount.”

“Looking at the issue from a long-term perspective, over the past decade, SERS paid $2.4 billion in fees, while earning $19.7 billion net of fees and expenses AND paying out $23.2 billion in retirement benefits.

“Compare that performance to an industry standard 60% equity/40% bond index fund, SERS’ performance added $4.9 billion of value to the fund with 0.5% less volatility.

“To further illustrate this value, our alternative investment program, built with top-tier investment managers, outperformed the U.S. public market equities return by 5% net of all fees over the decade ended 2013… Over the past five years, we reduced fees 30%. We get good value for the fees we pay…

“In 2013, SERS earned $3.7 billion, after all investment management fees and expenses of $175 million were paid. From a basic dollar perspective, that’s like paying $175 over the year to net $3,700 in your pocket at the end of the year.”

The PSERS spokesperson told DiStefano:

“We are not aware of the details of the Governor’s proposal on investment management fees. We have not met with him,” and won’t comment on details of the proposal until they are available.

“Our investment management fees are not excessive relative to the incremental value generated. PSERS paid $482 million in investment expenses for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2014. This amounts to 0.93% of our fund.

“By spending those fees, we earned an additional $1.27 billion (net of fees) ABOVE the index return,” Williams added in an email. “We would not have that additional $1.27 billion or 2.8% in additional investment performance if we did not use active managers.

“Looking longer term for the past 15 fiscal years (2000-2014), PSERS incurred $4.96 billion in investment management fees. In exchange for those fees, the Fund received the index returns plus an additional $16.42 billion in excess performance gross of the fees incurred. So, net of fees, PSERS generated $11.46 billion of incremental performance above the applicable index returns.

Read more of their remarks, including reaction to Wolf’s pension bond proposal, here.

 

Photo by c_ambler via Flickr CC License

Pennsylvania Gov. Budget Proposal: Overhaul Pension Investment Strategy and Cut Fees, Managers

Tom Wolf

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf released his first budget proposal last week, and there were several items of interest related to pensions.

On Wednesday, Pension360 covered Wolf’s proposal for issuing $3 billion in pension bonds to attempt to shore up the funding of the state’s two major pension systems.

But Wolf is also proposing an overhaul of the systems’ investment strategy.

Specifically, Wolf is calling for the systems to take a more passive approach to investing and to cut down the fees it pays to managers.

The proposal was short on specifics but called for the funds to “prudently maximize future investment returns through cost effective investment strategies.”

More from ai-cio.com:

The “commonsense reforms” mean its two state pension plans would have to “seek less costly passive investment approaches where appropriate,” according to the budget.

Pennsylvania’s employee and teachers’ pensions together have upwards of $50 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. Wolf’s budget blamed the growing gap primarily on “repeated decisions by policy makers to delay making the required contribution to fund our future pension obligations.”

The state has not paid its full pension bill for more than 15 years, the budget document noted.

While the proposal was light on specifics for reforming pension investment strategy, the outcome would “significantly reduce taxpayer costs for professional fund managers,” it claimed.

The state largest plan, the $52 billion Public School Employees’ Retirement System, already managed roughly a quarter of its assets in-house, as of June 2014. Its portfolio included relatively standard allocations to fee-heavy asset classes, such as private equity (16.3%) and real estate (13.8%).

Net-of-fees, the teachers’ pension returned an annualized 10.3% over the last five years.

The executive director of the state’s Public School Employees Retirement System defended the fund’s investment strategy in a newspaper piece last year.

 

Photo by Governor Tom Wolf via Flickr CC License

Pennsylvania Gov. Wolf Proposes $3 Billion Pension Bond

Tom Wolf

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf unveiled his budget proposal on Tuesday, and it contained a number of pension-related items.

The biggest was undoubtedly the proposed issuance of $3 billion in pension bonds, to be used to pay down the liability of the Public School Employees Retirement System (PSERS).

As is always the case with pension bonds, the state runs the risk of worsening its financial position. But if PSERS’ investment returns exceed the bonds’ interest rates, the state will come out on top.

More from Philly.com:

“A portion of the current unfunded liability for PSERS would be refinanced to take advantage of historically low interest rates, with all savings reinvested to reduce that liability.” Wolf wants to borrow $3 billion and give it to PSERS so it can reduce the recent increase in pension subsidies by school districts and the state treasury.

[…]

Given recent bond prices and Pennsylvania’s bond rating (third-worst of U.S. states after Illinois and New Jersey), rates for taxable Pennsylvania pension bonds “would be about 3.25% (for 10-year bonds) and maybe 4% in 30 years,” Alan Shanckel, municipal bond strategist for Janney Capital Markets in Philadelphia, told me. Pennsylvania would have to pay that percentage and beat its self-imposed 7.5% investment return target each year to make the bond pay.

Pennsylvania’s state-level pension plans are about 62 percent funded, collectively.

Video: Lawmaker Talks Pennsylvania Pensions, Reform Plan

In this video, Pennsylvania State Rep. Warren Kampf [R] talks at length about the state’s pension systems – including funding, budget implications, and reform — and how he would address these issues.

 

Feature Photo credit: “Flag-map of Pennsylvania” by Niagara – Own work from File:Flag of Pennsylvania.svg and File:USA Pennsylvania location map.svgThis vector image was created with Inkscape. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag-map_of_Pennsylvania.svg#mediaviewer/File:Flag-map_of_Pennsylvania.svg

Pennsylvania Recieves Third Consecutive Credit Downgrade, and Its Pension System Is The Culprit

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Just a few weeks ago, Pension360 covered the story of Pennsylvania’s pension tussle; in short, the state’s governor wanted lawmakers to address pension reform before they left on their vacations. Well, lawmakers are now on vacation and pension reform is gathering dust. The state’s credit rating is now paying the price.

From Reuters:

Moody’s Investors Service downgraded its rating on Pennsylvania debt to Aa3 from Aa2 on Monday, the third consecutive year that a new state budget has prompted a credit cut.
Moody’s cited underperforming revenues and the continued use of one-time measures in its latest downgrade. After wrestling with lawmakers over public pensions and cutting millions of dollars through line-item vetoes, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett didn’t sign the 2015 budget until more than a week after the start of the new fiscal year on July 1.
The state has about $50 billion of unfunded long-term pension liabilities. About 63 cents of every new dollar of state revenue goes to pay pension costs, Corbett, a Republican, has said.
In order to close a deficit of about $1.5 billion without raising taxes, the state’s Republican-run legislature passed a spending plan that included one-time transfers of money from dedicated funds, such as one that helps volunteer fire companies purchase equipment.
Growing pension liabilities, coupled with modest economic growth, will limit Pennsylvania’s ability to regain structural balance in the near term, Moody’s said.

But the state can’t say it wasn’t warned; in fact, Moody’s, Fitch and S&P all warned Pennsylvania that they would be forced to downgrade its credit rating if the state produced an inadequate budget. A big part of what defined “adequacy”, in the eyes of the agencies, was doing something about the state’s dangerously unhealthy pension system.

Moody’s noted two key trends in its warning, released back in late April:

* High combined debt position driven by growing unfunded pension liabilities, and a history of significantly underfunding pension contributions that will be reversed slowly over the next four years
* Rapidly growing pension contributions will absorb much of the commonwealth’s financial flexibility over the next four years challenging its ability to return to structural balance or make meaningful contributions to the depleted budget stabilization fund

Moody’s, in its latest report, left the door open for upgrading the state’s rating. On the other hand, it also left the door open to downgrade it further. From Watchdog.org:

The rating could improve, Moody’s said, if the state reduced its long-term liabilities, including its unfunded pension liability. The rating could also rise if Pennsylvania replenished its reserves and revenues came in above projections, Moody’s indicated.
In turn, the rating could drop more if revenues come in worse than expected, if long-term liabilities grow and if further declines pressure liquidity, Moody’s said.
Moody’s gave Pennsylvania a stable outlook, saying that while Pennsylvania’s economy will grow more slowly than the United States on average, it has stabilized. Moody’s also cited a “recent history of improved governance, reflected in timely budget adoption and proactive financial management.”

Pennsylvania now has the third-worst credit rating among all 50 states. Illinois and New Jersey are the only states that carry lower ratings.