Tag: Larry Pollack

Will Actuaries Come Clean on Public Pensions?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.cato.org/regulation/winter-2023-2024/will-actuaries-come-clean-public-pensions

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Excerpt:

To appreciate the significance of using inappropriate discounting, consider this example: A 45‐​year‐​old public sector employee earns $75,000 per year with no pension plan or other benefits. To help secure her retirement, her employer considers changing her compensation to $73,000 in salary plus a U.S. Treasury zero‐​coupon bond that pays $5,000 in 20 years. The bond is selling in the market at $2,000. The Treasury bond’s implicit annual “discount rate” is thus 4.69 percent, i.e., $2,000 plus 4.69 percent interest compounded for 20 years equals $5,000.

The total compensation cost to the employer would remain $75,000. The employee, in turn, has three options:

  • She can sell the bond and be in an identical position as before.
  • She can accept her employer’s nudge and keep the bond until retirement.
  • She can sell the bond and invest the $2,000 in other assets, e.g., stocks, in the hope of generating additional retirement income, albeit taking the risk that she may end up with less than $5,000.

Now suppose the public employer decides to be more paternalistic. Instead of giving the employee the Treasury bond worth $2,000, it promises her that in 20 years it will pay her $5,000. To fund this liability, the employer could deposit the $2,000 in a trust and have the trust buy the Treasury bond. The promise would then be fully funded by the trust. In 20 years, the Treasury bond would be redeemed for $5,000 and the proceeds forwarded to the employee. In the intervening 20 years, before the bond redemption and payment to the employee, the value of the future payment would increase with the passage of time, and increase (or decrease) as market interest rates decrease (or increase). But the value of the bond held in the trust would change identically to the liability, and the contractual obligation to pay $5,000 at age 65 would remain fully funded at every instant until paid, regardless of what happens in financial markets. Ignoring frictional costs and taxes, the employer’s cost of those actions would be the same as if it had paid the employee $75,000 in cash. And the employee’s total compensation would still be $75,000: $73,000 in cash plus a promise worth $2,000.

But instead of contributing the $2,000 and using it to buy the bond, the public employer could hire a public pension actuary and invest any trust contributions in a “prudent diversified” portfolio including assets, like equities, exposed to various market risks. The actuary would attest that the “expected” annual earnings of the portfolio over the long term is 7 percent (according to a sophisticated financial model). The actuary would then use the 7 percent to discount the $5,000 future payment and certify that the “cost” to the employer is $1,292, which is 35 percent less than the $2,000 cost of the Treasury bond. The actuary would certify that if the employer contributes the $1,292, its benefit obligation is “fully funded” because, if the trust earns the “expected return” of 7 percent (50 percent probable, after all), the $1,292 will accumulate to $5,000 in 20 years. The public employer can then claim it has saved taxpayers $708 ($2,000 – $1,292) by investing in a prudent diversified asset portfolio.

The question is, does it really cost only $1,292 to provide the same value as a $2,000 Treasury bond? Is $1,292 invested in the riskier portfolio worth the same as a Treasury bond that costs $2,000? Of course not. If it is possible to spin $1,292 of straw into $2,000 of gold, why would the government employer stop at pensions? Why not borrow as much as possible now and invest the proceeds in a prudent diversified portfolio expected to earn 7 percent and use the “expected” gains from taking market risk to pay for future general government expenditures?

The public employer is providing a benefit worth $2,000—a guarantee—and hoping to pay for it with $1,292 invested in a risky portfolio. The $708 difference represents the value of the guarantee that taxpayers will make good on any shortfall when the $5,000 comes due. The cost to taxpayers in total is still $2,000, but $708 is being taken from future generations by the current generation in the form of risk. Risk is a cost (precisely $708 in this example). Its price reflects the possibility as viewed by the market that future taxpayers ultimately may have to pay nothing at all if things go well, or a significant sum if they don’t.

Suppose the employer takes this logic one step further and, rather than promising $5,000 in 20 years, it contributes $1,292 to a defined contribution plan that invests in the same prudent diversified portfolio on the theory that the employee will be breaking even because the $1,292 is “expected” to accumulate to $5,000. The employee would be correct to view that as a cut in pay. The $708 cost of risk is shifted to the employee, reducing her compensation, instead of being borne by future taxpayers as in the case of the defined benefit plan.

The employee might complain. Future taxpayers cannot.

The only way for the employer to keep the employee whole with $73,000 of cash compensation plus a defined contribution plan is to contribute $2,000 to the plan. Whether it is invested in the Treasury bond or in riskier assets in the hope of higher returns, the value of her total compensation would still be $75,000.

Table 1 summarizes all these scenarios. The fourth column is the analog of public pension plans. Both the reported annual cost for the future $5,000 payment ($1,292) and the reported total compensation ($74,292) are understated. Investment professionals are paid well for managing risky assets for which high expected returns can be claimed. The actuary collects a fee. The employee has the value of the guarantee and bears none of the market risk being taken. Along with a happy employee, the public employer gets to report an understated compensation cost, freeing up money for other budget items. It’s good for all involved—except for the taxpayers on the hook for $708 in costs hidden by using the 7 percent discount rate.

Author(s): Larry Pollack

Publication Date: Winter 2023-2024

Publication Site: Cato Regulation

Fiduciary principles need to be reaffirmed and strengthened in public pension plans

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://reason.org/policy-brief/fiduciary-principles-need-to-be-reaffirmed-strengthened-public-pension-plans/

Executive Summary:

Fiduciaries are people responsible for managing money on behalf of others. The fundamental fiduciary duty of loyalty evolved over centuries, and in the context of pension plans sponsored by state and local governments (“public pension plans”) requires investing solely in plan members’ and taxpayers’ best interests for the exclusive purpose of providing pension benefits and defraying reasonable expenses. This duty is based on the notion that investing and spending money on behalf of others comes with a responsibility to act with an undivided loyalty to those for whom the money was set aside.

But the approximately $4 trillion in the trusts of public pension plans may tempt public officials and others who wish to promote—or, alternatively, punish those who promote— high-profile causes. For example, in recent years, government officials in both California and Texas, political polar opposites, have acted to undermine the fiduciary principle of loyalty. California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Executive Order N-19-19 describes its goal “to leverage the pension portfolio to advance climate leadership,” and a 2021 Texas law prohibits investing with companies that “boycott” energy companies to send “a strong message to both Washington and Wall Street that if you boycott Texas Energy, then Texas will boycott you.” Both actions and others like them, attempt to use pension assets for purposes other than to provide pension benefits, violating the fundamental fiduciary principle of loyalty.

The misuse of pension money in the public and private sectors has a long history. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), signed into law by President Gerald Ford in 1974, codified fiduciary principles for U.S. private sector retirement plans nearly 50 years ago and is used as a prototype for pension fiduciary rules in state law and elsewhere. Dueling sets of ERISA regulations issued within a two-year period during the Trump and Biden administrations consistently reinforced the principle of loyalty. State legislation and executive actions, however, have weakened and undermined it, even where it is codified elsewhere in state law.

Thirty million plan members rely on public pension funds for financial security in their old age. The promises to plan members represent an enormous financial obligation of the taxpayers in the states and municipalities that sponsor these plans. If investment returns fall short of a plan’s goals, then taxpayers and future employees will be obligated to make up the difference through higher contribution rates.

The exclusive purpose of pension funds is to provide pension benefits. Using pension funds to further nonfinancial goals is not consistent with that purpose, even if it happens to be a byproduct. This basic understanding has been lost in the recent politically polarized public debates around ESG investing—investing that takes into account environmental, social, and governance factors and not just financial considerations.

It is critically important that fiduciary principles be reaffirmed and strengthened in public pension plans. The potential cost of not doing so to taxpayers, who are ultimately responsible for making good on public pension promises, runs into trillions of dollars. Getting on track will likely require a combination of ensuring the qualifications of plan fiduciaries responsible for investing, holding fiduciaries accountable for acting in accordance with fiduciary principles, limiting the ability of nonfiduciaries to undermine and interfere with fiduciaries, and separating the fiduciary function of investment management from settlor functions like setting funding policy and determining benefit levels.

Author(s): Larry Pollack

Publication Date: 11 May 2023

Publication Site: Reason

A chance to enter a new era of financial transparency and awareness for public pension plans

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://reason.org/commentary/a-chance-to-enter-a-new-era-of-financial-transparency-and-awareness-for-public-pension-plans/

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Excerpt:

On Feb. 11, the Actuarial Standards Board issued a revised Actuarial Standard of Practice No. 4, effective February 15, 2023. The rollout has been low-key. The announcement says:

“Notable changes made to the existing 2013 version include expanding the scope to clarify the application of the standard when the actuary selects an output smoothing method and when an assumption or method is not selected by the actuary.”

But this description obscures a significant new required disclosure, one which follows years of controversy and acrimony within and among actuaries and the public pension plan community at large.  The requirement was the overwhelming focus during the drafting and comment period.     

The new required disclosure reflects economic reality better than any currently required number.

Author(s): Larry Pollack

Publication Date: 25 Mar 2022

Publication Site: Reason