Tag: Pensions

Maryland’s $45.8 billion pension fund for state employees and teachers earned 2.68% for the past fiscal year, almost 5 percentage points below its target of 7.65%, but better than benchmark returns for its various asset classes, its Board of Trustees was told Tuesday.

Once again, the House of Delegate took the easy way out of its budget bind — and in the process stuck it to future state workers, teachers and taxpayers.

The Senate is on a glide path that follows that same flawed approach.

Instead of facing up to its fiduciary pension obligations, Annapolis delegates opted to play games, placing at risk the safety of state retirement programs.

The legislature’s staff is recommending that lawmakers make another major change in pension funding, eliminating extra payments into Maryland’s underfunded pension system and returning to full actuarial funding.

The proposal would save $70 million in next year’s budget and $2 billion over the next 10 years. But it would ultimately cost taxpayers $2.5 billion more than current plans for pension contributions in the following 13 years.

Good news from the Maryland state retirement agency: investment earnings over the past year ending June 30 rose a strong 14.37 percent. Don’t get too excited: The agency is still digging out of a deep financial hole caused by the Great Recession, poor decisions by former governors and legislators and poor advice from the agency’s consultant. The retirement fund’s health, though, is showing solid improvement.

Maryland’s pension system for state employees and teachers had another strong investment performance for the fiscal year which ended June 30 earning 14.37%, bringing the value of the portfolio to $45.4 billion, a gain of more than $5 billion.

It was the second year in a row of strong performance due to sharp upturns in stocks, according to Chief Investment Officer Melissa Moye. The fund exceeded its target of 7.7% and its market benchmark of 14.16% — what its basket of assets would have been expected to earn.