{"id":5843,"date":"2013-09-19T10:02:33","date_gmt":"2013-09-19T16:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/?p=5843"},"modified":"2013-09-19T10:02:33","modified_gmt":"2013-09-19T16:02:33","slug":"morningstar-wisconsin-retirement-system-strongest-in-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/?p=5843","title":{"rendered":"Morningstar: Wisconsin Retirement System Strongest in Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to the Morningstar annual public pension report, <a href=\"http:\/\/news.morningstar.com\/articlenet\/article.aspx?id=608256\">The State of State Pension Plans 2013<\/a>, Wisconsin is home to the strongest public pension in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Wisconsin&#8217;s plan is 99.9 percent fully-funded, while the national average stands at just 73 percent. Illinois, home to the weakest plan, has a funding ratio of just over 40 percent. Wisconsin&#8217;s pension liability is just $18 per capita, while Illinois&#8217; is $7,421.<\/p>\n<p>Wisconsin has long been regarded as a leader in pension fund management. A little more than a year ago, the Pew Center on the States <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewstates.org\/research\/reports\/the-widening-gap-update-85899398241\">found<\/a> that WRS is fully funded and one of just a few \u201csolid performers\u201d in the country. A <a href=\"http:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/Pew-Pension-Fact-Sheet-Wisconsin.pdf\">fact sheet<\/a> about the state\u2019s pension fund in 2010 shows that Wisconsin paid 108 percent of the recommended contribution to its pension fund. According to Pew, most experts say that a pension fund should be at least 80 percent funded.<\/p>\n<p>In related news, the Department of Employee Trust Funds <a href=\"http:\/\/etf.wi.gov\/members\/performance.htm\">announced<\/a> the Wisconsin Retirement System exceeded year-to-date benchmarks for both funds managed by the State of Wisconsin Investment Board.  The Core Trust Fund recorded a performance result of 5.1 percent, compared to a 4.8 percent benchmark. The Variable Trust Fund&#8217;s performance result of 13.3 percent exceeded its benchmark of 12.7 percent. These figures are based on preliminary data.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.statebudgetsolutions.org\/\">State Budget Solutions<\/a>, a free-market research organization, released a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.statebudgetsolutions.org\/publications\/detail\/promises-made-promises-broken-the-betrayal-of-pensioners-and-taxpayers\">report<\/a> earlier this month maintaining that WRS has a funding ratio of just 57 percent. The Department of Employee Trust Funds <a href=\"http:\/\/etf.wi.gov\/news\/ht-budget-solutions.pdf\">responded<\/a> to the report, reasserting that WRS is 99 percent funded, a figure confirmed by independent actuaries.<\/p>\n<p>The response went on to say State Budget Solutions used faulty logic in analyzing the data:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The report reached this conclusion by measuring future WRS pension obligations using a rate of return pegged to the yield on 15-year U.S. Treasury bonds, which at the time was about 3.225%. The report did not analyze the specifics of the WRS. It simply applied this rate to the WRS, resulting in a substantially overstated unfunded liability. Using such a low rate of return is not appropriate for the WRS, which, by appropriate measures, is better than 99% funded on a smoothed valuation basis and approximately 103% on a fair value basis as of December 31, 2012.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to the Morningstar annual public pension report, The State of State Pension Plans 2013, Wisconsin is home to the strongest public pension in the country. Wisconsin&#8217;s plan is 99.9 percent fully-funded, while the national average stands at just 73&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/?p=5843\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[56],"class_list":["post-5843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-state","tag-wrs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5843"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5871,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5843\/revisions\/5871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}