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Ohio SERS is taking extra measures to monitor private equity fees and performance |
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The $12.82 billion pension system is among a small-but growing-group of investors that have examined their private equity fee and expense statements more closely as a result of heavier industry scrutiny by the Securities and Exchange Commission in recent years. Once seen as an esoteric topic of conversation, private equity fees are coming into the spotlight as investors from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System to the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association seek more transparency on the costs they bear from private equity firms they back.
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Author Archives: Emily Pote
News from the National Association of State Retirement Association News
Check out the article below from this week’s NASRA’s news clips pertaining to new ways to save:
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Treasury launches myRA nationwide
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With the initial pilot phase of the program concluded, Treasury announced that myRA is now available nationwide with multiple ways for individuals to start saving: 1) automatic direct deposit contributions to myRA through an employer; 2) recurring or one-time contributions from a checking or savings account; and 3) directing all or a portion of a federal tax refund to a MyRA.
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Candidates for Elective Office – Attorney General’s Race
MRPEA’s purpose is to promote the health, well-being, quality of life and financial interests of all members of the Public Employee’s Retirement System (PERS) of the State of Mississippi. In so doing, your MRPEA board conducts survey’s of candidates for elective office that could potentially affect PERS. Two such surveys are provided for your information as follows: .(Hood Survey Response) (Hurst Survey Response)
Defined Benefits Plans Help Public Sector Recruit & Retain Employees
Refer to the study taken from the National Association of Retirement Administrators new clips:
Public Sector Faces a Retirement Wave
Other studies have confirmed that retirements, if unanticipated, threaten all public sector employers to a greater degree than the private sector. The local government workforce is especially vulnerable, with the percentage of workers at least 50 years of age (37 percent) significantly greater than the private sector (28 percent), according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic reports.
Follow up to NASRA’s article about Alabama’s retirement plans
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Alabama legislative pension committee hears positive news about state’s retirement plans
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The Joint Committee on Pensions is studying and developing “consensus recommendations concerning the benefits, investments, and funding of the state-administered retirement systems and any other measures that the committee believes would lead to the improved financial stability of the state-administered retirement systems.”
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Alabama Retirement System & Their Legislature
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The MRPEA Board receives copies of news clips from the National Association of State Retirement Administrators (NASRA). It has been recommended that some of the articles be shared with MRPEA from time to time. The article below reflects a situation taking place in AL that you may find interesting. Often the support and backing of legislation as described below comes from the companies that sell mutual funds or annuities. What is taking place in AL explains why we in Mississippi need to remain vigilant in watching our retirement dollars and PERS system. (See article below as taken from the NASRA News Clips.) Battle forming in Alabama between the retirement system and the legislature, with help from Pew |
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Earlier this year, the State Legislature formed a subcommittee to consider pension efforts that have occurred in other states. Backed by well-organized political advocacy groups, some of these changes have eliminated guaranteed contributions to future employees while reducing other states’ pension obligations. … “There will always be a fight with the pension fund over money,” Bronner said. “If you are sending me money and you can take the money and spend it on something that’s cooler, you’re going to fight over it.”
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Article on the Perils of Several States that Switched from Defined Benefit Pension Plans to Defined Contribution Plans
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National Public Pension Coalition on the perils of switching plan type |
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The example of states that have actually switched from a defined benefit pension plan to a defined contribution (401k-style) system shows that these “reforms” are simply snake oil sold by hucksters. Alaska, Michigan, and West Virginia demonstrate the failure of switching to a defined contribution system to provide retirement security for public employees.
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Research Brief on Retirement Risk of Defined Benefit Plans Issued by The National Institute on Retirement Security
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NIRS issue brief: What role can annuities play in reducing public pension plan risks? |
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During the last decade, managing investment risk has posed challenges while life expectancies have increased. Yet, the NIRS issue brief, Retirement Security Risk: What Role Can Annuities Play in Easing Risks in Public Pension Plans?, indicates that most public DB pension have successfully managed investment, adequacy, longevity and inflation risks appropriately as described below.
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The Guardian – Summer 2015 Edition
The Summer 2015 edition of The Guardian is provided for your information and use. This is a quarterly newsletter that provides information about the purpose of MRPEA and what it’s board does to help protect state retirement benefits. Get to know your board members, learn the status of legislative bills pertaining to retirees, what happening at PERS, and what some other retirees are doing during their retirement. (Click on the link provided to read the full edition.) The Guardian Summer 2015 Final
As always feedback is encouraged and welcomed. Just email us at http://www.mrpea@bellsouth.net.
Look forward to hearing from you!
Thanks! Becky Cade
PERS Service Retirement – Message from Pat Robertson
PERS Service Retirement is working diligently to process the backlog of retirement applications, working long hours and on weekends.
The transition to the new processing system was successful, however, as expected with any conversion/migration there is a learning curve and there have been a few “hiccups”.
Under normal circumstances, application processing takes 90 days from the day an application is received. In our current situation, applications submitted from March 1 to June 30 are taking up to 120 days to process, which we hope will decrease as time passes and staff gets up to speed on the new system. It is important to understand that these are extraordinary circumstances and not PERS normal way of doing business.
We have updated our website <http://www.pers.ms.gov/> with messaging about this process and where we are in the backlog. Each Monday we will post the “submitted the week of” date for the applications we are currently processing. Having this date posted should provide better clarity to our members as to where their application is in the retirement process.