Berkshire County and Adams Retirement Systems score well

Public employees in two local retirement systems should feel pretty good about their pensions according to a recent report by the Pioneer Institute, a Boston-based research firm.

Pioneer has recently created a new public pension website with information on all 105 Massachusetts retirement systems.  The data show that the Berkshire County and Adams Retirement Systems each scored a solid B, a composite grade based on three major criteria that indicate a system’s health.

The individual scores that make up the composite are a system’s funded ratio, assumed rate of return and funding deadline.

The funded ratio shows the extent that fund assets are sufficient to cover liabilities to current and future retirees.  In Berkshire’s case, the study shows the system is 83.5 percent funded, while Adams is 80.9 percent funded.

The rate of return reflects the ability of a system to meet its actuarially assumed return over the last year and both the county and Adams systems met those expectations.

And the funding deadline is the year in which a system is expected to be fully funded.  The Berkshire system will achieve that in 2022 and Adams in 2030.

Berkshire’s system represents all Berkshire County towns, with the exception of Adams and the cities of North Adams and Pittsfield. They have their own retirement systems.

Other Berkshire County members include the non-teaching staff of area regional school districts, several veterans, fire and water districts, housing authorities and Berkshire County Mosquito Control.  The county group covers more than 2,000 active and retired employees.

North Adams and Pittsfield not doing as well

Apart from Adams, the two other local municipal retirement systems aren’t doing as well.

North Adams got a C and Pittsfield received a D, mostly because its funded ratio is a relatively low 46.4 percent and its deadline for full funding is 2036.  These scores could change in coming years, as many systems are recovering from the crash of 2008 and returns have picked up.

Local teachers are part of the Massachusetts Teachers Retirement System and local state employees belong to the Massachusetts State Employees Retirement System. Each received a C.

Berkshire County’s performance is all the more notable when compared to the other counties. No other county-wide system attained a composite grade of B, with about half of the other counties getting a C and the other half getting a D.

And the Town of Adams grade is also commendable, as only about a half dozen other cities and towns received a B.

The lowest score was given to the City of Springfield, long troubled by fiscal problems. Its funding deadline is 2037 and it only has a 29 percent funding ratio, the worst in the state.

The small Minuteman Regional School District in Lexington is the only fully-funded system and was the only one to get an A.

Berkshire and Pittsfield invest their pension funds with the state run Pension Reserves Investment Trust (PRIT), North Adams invests some of its funds there and Adams doesn’t use PRIT.

Sheila LaBarbera, executive director of the Berkshire County system, credits PRIT with helping to provide the solid return on Berkshire retirement investments.

She said the local five member board of directors has “no complaint” about its decision to invest all local funds with PRIT and noted the Berkshire board “adopted a fairly aggressive schedule” in order to meet its 2022 full funding deadline.

It’s interesting to note the Social Security Administration estimates that, by 2033, its trust funds will be depleted and it will have only payroll taxes to try to meet its obligations, while at the same time the Berkshire County and Adams pension trusts will be fully funded.

Posted by Bruce Garlow on July 25, 2013. Filed under Berkshire Beacon Hill Spotlight,Columns,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry