More on the Public Pension Controversy

The media has fallen in love with the ongoing controversy over public pensions. In the last few weeks, article after article has appeared in major print and electronic media mostly discussing how poorly funded the majority of public pension funds are and placing blame everywhere they can. This is not to say that there are not problems and it's also not to say that there's not plenty of blame to go around, but as in most any controversy, there's more than one side to this issue.

Before delving into it, let me provide some background for those who may not be particularly familiar with public pensions.

Virtually all public pension plans are traditional defined benefit (DB) pension plans in which most, if not all, of the benefit is provided through contributions from the sponsoring governmental entity (some do require significant participant contributions in order to get that benefit). The benefit is typically related to final year's (or the average of the last three or five years) compensation. As a result, spikes in compensation in the final year or years of a career produce much larger pensions. And, when overtime pay is included in those amounts, workers are smart enough to know that their pensions can easily be boosted by getting as much overtime as possible.

As I said, most of these pensions are funded largely through contributions from the governmental entities. Where do those contributions come from? Well, for most of those entities, the very large majority of their budgets come from tax dollars. So, if the recommended, or even legally mandated contributions get too large, there are only two choices -- ignore those requirements or raise taxes (of course in most jurisdictions, future benefits can be reduced prospectively, but that's a different story for a different day).

The current debate centers on public plans in California. What we have recently learned is that the California Public Employers Retirement System (CalPers) values pension liabilities in two ways -- one using what the New York Times referred to as the actuarial value and another referring to it as a market value.

The next two paragraphs briefly discuss a rationale for each basis. For the sake of both simplicity and brevity, both are oversimplified and should not be taken as a precise rationale for either.

The actuarial value discounts obligations using a discount rate at the expected long-term rate of return on plan assets. Proponents argue that this is correct because plans are expected to have a degree of permanence and as assets are invested for the long haul, the obligations that they support should be discounted on that same basis.

Market value discounts obligations using a current settlement rate; roughly speaking, that is the rate at which you could go out to the insurance market to settle those obligations. Proponents argue that in an efficient market, there is no risk premium in investments and therefore, this is the only appropriate basis on which to discount.

What we have read about in the news is that governments that thought that the plans that they sponsor were well funded and that wanted to pull out of the system are learning that to do so will cost them money that they will likely never have.

So, which method is correct? I suppose I could argue that it depends upon which media piece you read. You see, what is happening is that most of the articles have interviewed experts (or self-proclaimed experts) on only one side of the debate. So, they present that side.

The reality is that neither side is correct. It's not as simple a question as the strong proponents on either side would have you believe.

So, here's my take (you knew I would get to it eventually).

Public plan trustees need to understand the true costs of the plans they sponsor. On average, when an employee retires, their pension should be fully funded. This is often not happening. In years when investment returns are good, they use them to reduce contribution requirements. In years when investment returns are poor, they say they can't afford to make the appropriate contributions. It doesn't take an experienced actuary to tell you this is a problem.

I would urge that governments embark on prudent funding policies that build up surpluses in strong years in order to pay for shortfalls in lean years. Doing so will have only minimal effect on the tax base. Studies to understand these issues should be par for the course.

I also urge the popular media to realize that this is not a one-sided issue. While it may make for a great read to tell of the sad tale of a small Citrus District pension plan that is woefully underfunded, it's a small part of the story.

Within the Conference of Consulting Actuaries (yes, I am biased, I serve on the Board of Directors), there is a Public Plans Community that regularly discusses issues such as this. For those who are interested in a view of the problem from people who understand the issues, it's an excellent read.

The Truth About Actuarial Valuations of Pension Plans

I've heard the same comments for years. I've heard that a company loves its actuary, but they can't give you one reason why. I've heard that actuarial work is a commodity and that everyone produces the same numbers, so you might as well go with the lowest bidder. There's more; there's lots more.

I'm here to tell you that it's all wrong and it's wrong now more than ever.

Let's revisit history a little bit. In the beginning (well, not quite the beginning), there was ERISA. And, Congress saw that it was good ... for a while.

ERISA brought us rules and choices. The rules said that plan sponsors had to fund the sum of the annual cost of benefits that were accruing (normal cost) plus a portion of the amount by which the plan was underfunded using some fairly complex formulas. But, those calculations were pretty malleable. In fact, there were many methods by which to calculate those numbers and if you couldn't find the methods to get you the answers you wanted, you could likely talk your actuary into selecting assumptions to get you to those numbers. That's the way the game was played from the mid-70s through the mid-80s.

Then, the rules began to change. Congress saw that corporate tax deductions for funding pensions were a significant drag on the federal budget. So, Congress sought to limit those deductions by bringing in multiple funding regimes. So, was passed the Pension Protection Act of 1987 as part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987. And, Congress saw that is was good ... for a while.

Multiple funding regimes theoretically brought multiple choices, but with the 90s came the era of full funding. With the use of high discount rates tied to assumed rates of returns on plan assets, those assets exceeded the calculated liabilities of the plan. More plans than not had no required contributions. Pensions were cheap.

And, then came the perfect storm. Interest rates fell, asset values fell, and Congress had to do something. In 2006, Congress passed another Pension Protection Act (PPA). And, Congress saw that it was good.

But, there was something different about PPA. It severely limited flexibility in calculating the actuarial liabilities of a pension plan. In fact, with very limited exceptions, without any knowledge of the actuarial assumptions being selected, another actuary could fairly well reproduce that calculation of actuarial liabilities (at least within in a few percent).

But, what we have now is a tangled web. There are so many liabilities and percentages. Every single one of them affects the cost of your plan. There is the funding target, the plan termination liability, the liability for purposes of calculating PBGC premiums. There's the FTAP, the AFTAP, and various other funding percentages.

While each individual calculation is simple, getting to the correct answer is not.

And, that's why your choice of actuary for your plan is actually far more important today than it used to be.

Suppose I told you that your actuary's lack of attention to your plan as compared to the rules was costing you more money annually than you pay in actuarial fees.

Suppose I told you that your actuary's not focusing on your business's cash flow needs was forcing you to borrow unnecessarily.

Suppose I told you that that renegotiation of a loan covenant that you just went through because your pension plan had too low a funded percentage could have been avoided.

The scary thing is that I have told companies all of those things. We're in an era now where calculation is easy, but strategy is difficult. In fact, more plans than not are using a suboptimal strategy. Don't you need to know if you are spending more money than you need to or if you are spending it inefficiently?

The Pension Tale of the Cash and the Calendar

Once upon a time, there was a defined benefit (DB) pension plan. And, the plan was fully funded. And, that was good.

Well, at least, the plan's actuary told the plan sponsor that the plan was fully funded. And, then he said something else after that -- something about a HATFA basis. Oh, but it couldn't matter. That was clearly some foreign word. After all, the sponsor knew that the actuary was a really smart and he probably lapsed into foreign tongues once in a while. All that actuarial gibberish is pretty much a foreign language, anyway.

So, the plan sponsor, in this case represented by the Benefits Manager (Bob) and the Controller (Cliff), armed with the knowledge that its frozen plan was fully funded gleefully went off to see the CFO (Charlotte). It was time to tell her that the plan was fully funded and that the plan could be terminated.

Those of who work in the pension world know that this little story didn't end well. For those who don't work in that world, let's just say that being fully funded at the beginning of 2016 on a HATFA basis may mean that on a plan termination basis, assets may only be very roughly 2/3 of liabilities.

Our story goes on.

After understanding that they couldn't terminate the plan, the sponsor Craters R Yours (CRY), the world's largest manufacturer of inflatable moonwalks set about to continue managing their frozen DB plan. CRY had initially assumed that freezing the plan was an end to its pension worries, but it soon learned that was not the case.

They learned that frozen plan management can be a tale of volatility caused by cliffs and calendars. In year 1, we get funding relief. In year 2, it's gone and we revert to the old rules. We're 80.01% funded; all is well. We're 79.99% funded; life gets really tough. We make a contribution on March 31; a ratio gets better. We make it on April 2; there are things we have to tell the government.

Bob and Cliff learned that their jobs had become really difficult. Charlotte had roundly praised them when they found a new and inexpensive actuary, Numbers For Cheap. And, NFC always provided legally correct numbers. But, there was no strategy. NFC didn't tell Bob and Cliff that contributing $1,000,001 on March 31 was going to be much more valuable in the long run than contributing $999,999 on April 2. Because NFC really had no clue, CRY would up doing a lot of crying.

Bob and Cliff, and Charlotte, for that matter had been sure that when they froze CRY's pension plan that the actuarial work was a pure commodity. All the strategy was done. All that was left was to hire the cheapest actuary and get the plan terminated.

The moral of the story, of course, is that pension funding strategy doesn't end until the plan is gone. Until then, there is a difference, and you, as a plan sponsor need someone who can help you to find that optimal strategy. Let us help.