Annual Meeting Public Plan Sessions

Speakers examine both technical and consulting challenges that arise when recommending expected return assumptions for public pension plans. They start by drilling down on some technical pitfalls, including how – and how not – to develop portfolio return statistics, mapping capital market assumptions from various sources, and even a review of the roles of arithmetic and geometric expected returns. Then speakers investigate the overlapping roles and responsibilities of the actuary and the investment consultant. How should the trustees understand differences between our often very different expected returns? And how can we work together to bring the trustees to a prudent understanding of the relationship between asset allocation and the actuary’s investment return assumption?

What data resources are available to actuaries and how can they help? Presenters showcase their publicly available data surveys and visualization tools, as well as ongoing updates, that can help actuaries gather and communicate nationwide pension information.

Speakers evaluate alternatives to traditional cash contributions to fund public pension plans. They explore the public finance perspective of transferring in-kind assets, privatizing assets with public private partnerships, dedicating revenue streams and other ways of potentially capitalizing underutilized public assets to fund pensions. They also discuss Public Obligation Bonds (POBs) and how actuaries can help their clients evaluate the impact these proceeds can have on the long-term funding plan.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the first quarter, 2020 proved unique with regard to all aspects of public pension plans across the US, regardless of the size of membership or assets. Come join our panel presentation for an in-depth discussion of “the 2020 effect” on plan experience, funding and contributions, benefit provisions and actuarial assumptions (economic and demographic), as well as asset allocation and performance. During this discussion, our speakers consider the potential short-term and long-term impacts of “the 2020 effect” on public pension plans.

The 2019 CCA Annual Meeting included a session where groups that advocate for positions and practices regarding public pension plans discussed their recent activities, including how their positions have evolved on the “DB-DC debate” for public plans. This year we are inviting representatives from two such groups, Pew and Equable, to sit down with groups representing public plans, NASRA and NCTR, to discuss these policy groups from an industry observers’ perspective, including their policy goals, funding sources, and recent activities. In effect, we will be both talking about and hearing from groups that advocate for positions and practices regarding public pension plans. Please join us for what promises to be a sparkling exchange.

Public pension plans are often the topic of contentious debate and headline news. This scrutiny generally does not include enough information on the history of public pension plans necessary to have an informed and productive understanding and discussion of the issues. Speakers in this session discuss the evolution of funded status, funding policies, key actuarial assumptions and investment decisions, plan demographics, benefit design, communications and risk assessments as practices pertaining to public pension plans have grown and changed over time.

(Polling Included) The Public Plans Open Forum is an opportunity for attendees to identify topics for informal discussion among your colleagues. The session leaders will also have a list of pre-determined topics, which may include economic assumptions, mortality tables, dealing with the impacts of COVID-19, Section 415 limits, recently adopted and proposed changes to the ASOPs, and other current issues of interest to public sector practitioners.