Austin police pension fund facing trouble
The Austin Police Department’s retirement system is in considerable trouble, with actuaries predicting that the fund will run out of money within 50 years unless the city and the officers who are members of the system reach an agreement to change current contribution levels, benefits and/or try a more novel approach.
Like other retirement funds, the Austin Police Retirement System suffered a significant loss in 2018. That loss, at $43.6 million, put the system’s rate of return in negative territory for 2018, at -6.18 percent, according to the report released Aug. 21.
Pattie Featherston, executive director of the Austin Police Retirement System, told the Austin Monitor via email, “The global stock markets were all down for 2018. The broad-based domestic Russell 3000 Index was down -5.24 percent, midcap growth was down -4.75 percent, midcap value was down -9.06 percent, small cap value was down -12.86 percent, and international markets were down -13.78 percent. Returns were looking good until December 2018, but they experienced a significant downturn that impacted the calendar year.”
The Police Retirement System portfolio of investments was valued at $718.5 million at the end of 2018 after those losses. Fortunately for the system, 2017 was an excellent year for stock market investors.
Read more: https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2019/08/austin-police-pension-fund-facing-trouble/