A new survey of public pensions suggests the financial health of California’s largest pension system is roughly in line with that of the majority of funds around the country.
The National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems, a trade association, released a survey Tuesday of 167 state and local government pension funds.
On average, the pension funds reported they had 72.6 percent of the assets they would need to cover all their liabilities — a measure of financial health known as pensions’ funded levels. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, worth about $350 billion, most recently reported it was 71 percent funded. Fitch Ratings typically considers a funded rate of 70 percent to be adequate. The survey, which was conducted for the second year in a row, shows CalPERS is among many responding pensions taking incremental steps toward better financial health.