The Missouri Pension Problem

My mother and father are both on Missouri public pensions. Thus, it struck close to home when I discovered that state pensions are facing some financial difficulty. According to recent information from the Pew Center for the States, Missouri faces a $60 billion shortfall when it comes to paying for health and pension benefits for retired state workers. The current funding ratio for the pensions is 77 percent (asset value to total liabilities), which is less than the 80 percent level many experts believe is the minimum level required for a pension to be fiscally sustainable.

Unfortunately, in many cases, the financial situation of these pensions is worse than the Pew report indicates. The 77 percent figure comes from an aggregation of several pensions. Individually, many pensions have funding ratios below 77 percent. In 2011, the Missouri State Employees’ Plan (MSEP) had a funding ratio of 79.2 percent, but the Missouri Department of Transportation and Highway Patrol Employees’ Retirement System (MPERS) had a funding ratio of 43.3 percent.

To make matters worse, the state’s monetary contributions to some of these plans is below what is required to keep up with the plans’ new obligations (this includes interest on obligations, which in the case of MSEP, is not fully funded). Thus, in many cases, the financial situation of these pension plans is getting worse, not better.

The Missouri Legislature has taken steps to deal with the pension shortfall. The state raised the retirement age to 67 from 62, along with requiring the workers to contribute 4 percent of their pay toward their pension benefits. Given the current financial situation of some of these pensions, I would suggest an additional common sense change.

The state should index the retirement age to life expectancy. Thus, as life expectancy increases, the retirement age would increase along with it so that the entire plan would be on firmer financial footing. This would not be the only change that could be made, but it would be a rather simple one to accomplish.