Let’s look at the condition of Minnesota Teachers, Connecticut state funds, and Chicago pensions, and three different (actually more) proposals to fix what ails these systems.
While Chicago is actually in the worst situation, the proposals for Chicago sound the most realistic in terms of fixing its problems.
Edward Siedle’s links
Mar 2024: Minnesota Teachers Fundraise Forensic Audit of State Pension System
Minnesota Teachers in Public Plans Database
Minnesota Teachers Retirement Association - contains two plans in the database: Duluth Teachers and Minnesota Teachers. Duluth is small in terms of participants, so I will just link Minnesota Teachers plan.
Minnesota Teachers pension plan.
Some selected graphs:
Connecticut pension links
Hartford Courant op-ed
10 Ways to reform public pension funds
Improvements in the state's historical investment underperformance can alleviate the crushing income tax burden of transferring $7.7 billion in surplus contributions from state tax revenues to pay down the pension burden, and relieve state public employees and teachers from being docked an additional 2% of their wages each year to cover the investments hole. With even average performance in the past, Connecticut's income tax might have been sliced in half or more.
Given the scale of this challenge, it is remarkable that decades of underperformance of Connecticut's pension funds escaped public notice and scrutiny for as long as it did, until last year, when we revealed in a 113-page research report how Connecticut's pension funds have had one of the worst investment track records of all 50 peer states, across all timeframes, which garnered significant attention and calls to action from across the state. Given the asset management and endowment investing expertise in Connecticut, this was a tragic paradox.
Yale Business Report
113-slide version: The Investment Challenges Facing Connecticut’s Pension Funds - Jan 2023.pdf
Shorter version: Why Connecticut’s Investments Are Underperforming
Pie charts w/ the Excel defaults:
They actually cleaned it up a little bit from the originals.
Washington Pensions
Connecticut Pensions
As you can see, there is a very salient different between the two states.
Chicago pension links
Press Release, 5 Apr 2024: Harris School of Public Policy Announces Policy Innovation Challenge's Winning Student-Led Pension Proposal
Op-eds from the finalists
Read each team's op-ed via the links below:
The winning team: Opinion: Here's a roadmap to financial stability with Chicago's pensions
By Syed Ahmad , Anthony Beaupre , Liam Gluck , James Karsten , Greg Rudd
Opinion: To fix Chicago's pensions, consider a change in public opinion
By Eddie Andujar , Andy Fan , Andre Oviedo , Alberto Saldarriaga
Opinion: Two paths to funding Chicago's pension future
By Anna Weiss , Purva Sarkango , Devyanshi Dubey
Public Pension Problems -- Proposed Solutions, But Will They Fix Anything?