Public Pension Insights 2024: A Comprehensive Survey on Compensation Trends
The 2024 Public Pension Compensation Survey—executed from May through July—captured in-depth compensation data on 88 common positions at public pension funds, as well as comprehensive data on benefits, salary increases, and bonuses.
By: Hank Kim, Executive Director & Counsel, NCPERS
NCPERS and CBIZ are thrilled to present Public Pension Insights 2024: A Comprehensive Survey on Compensation Trends. This year's report marks a significant step forward in providing comprehensive, actionable data to help public pension funds enhance their compensation strategies and better navigate the challenges of recruitment and retention.
This is the first year of our successful survey partnership, which was formed in response to feedback from HR professionals participating in NCPERS' HR Roundtable. These conversations underscored the need for a broader set of data to help public pensions make informed decisions. By combining NCPERS' deep understanding of the public pension sector with CBIZ's expertise in compensation evaluation, we've been able to deliver the most robust dataset yet.
The 2024 Public Pension Compensation Survey—executed from May through July—merged elements of both NCPERS' and CBIZ's previously existing surveys to capture in-depth compensation data on 88 common positions at public pension funds, as well as comprehensive data on benefits, salary increases, and bonuses.
This year's dataset paints a clear picture that public pension funds are beginning to find relief from the recruitment and retention challenges faced during the pandemic as they embrace highly desirable benefits and begin to see the effects of the recent surge in public sector wage growth. Almost half of responding funds indicated they are having no problems attracting and recruiting skilled staff, up from 38 percent of respondents to NCPERS 2022 Public Pension Compensation Survey. Only 12.3 percent of respondents indicated that recruitment and retention is a significant problem.
The survey received responses from 158 public pension funds that collectively administer 3,788 public employee retirement systems on behalf of 22,561,043 active and retired public servants. These organizations have a combined 18,969 full-time equivalent (FTE) employee positions and more than $4.5 trillion in assets under management. Respondents ranged from smaller local plans with less than $1 billion in assets under management to statewide plans with more than $100 billion in assets.
In addition to the report, the data are presented online in an interactive dashboard. Organizations are able to filter the data in a number of ways—such as region, number of fund staff, or assets under management—to help optimize the mix of funds to which they would like to compare themselves.
The report and dashboard have been made available to survey participants for free. If your organization did not participate but would like to gain access to these tools, please complete this order form and return to research@ncpers.org. Additional details about the report and dashboard are available here.
The results were first previewed at NCPERS inaugural Public Pension HR Summit, and attendees received a 20 percent discount on the survey. If you were unable to join us in Denver this year, don't miss the replay of our October 3rd webinar to gain essential insights into the public pension industry's compensation and benefits landscape.
We hope you find the report, Public Pension Insights 2024: A Comprehensive Survey on Compensation Trends, and accompanying interactive dashboard to be valuable tools as you evaluate your organization's compensation and benefits packages. Please don't hesitate to reach out to research@ncpers.org if we can assist in any way.