Blog
What we learned in Day 3 of General Session at the 2015 Annual Conference
1. The 2012 Ohio pension reform changes were to save their healthcare; with a fixed contribution rate, they can only change what they allocate to healthcare.
2. When the New London Connecticut firefighters moved from defined benefit to defined contribution plans, they were taking 100% of the risk, because they did not have social security.
3. IRS regulations won't allow any member to be disadvantaged by a new pension plan.
4. New London did a lot of outreach to inform the public that firefighters cannot work until they are 65. Firefighting is a 'young man's job" because when they get injured, it is difficult to bounce back; which in the end, costs the city money.
5. Fact: even in the first day of life, women have a better mortality rate than men.
6. If your pension plan adopts the new mortality rate table, your pension costs will go up.
7. For public plans, this table is not the answer to increasing life expectancy.
8. Between 2009- 2014, virtually every state adopted some pension reform; some changes were necessary, but many took advantage of the economic system at the time.
9. Efforts to make these changes were through a political campaign process which were in some cases funded by the assets public plans control.
10. NCPERS is organizing a national effort, since we are the largest public pension trade association, to set a standard for the public plan space. We expect all service providers to at a minimum be fiduciaries to our pension plans.