Pensions Fund Pension Fund Analysis the School

Pensions Fund

Pension Fund Analysis

The school was founded in 1839 and is Missouri's largest research university offering more than 280 degree programs (Mizzou, N.d.). The school is also the largest employer in the area with more than thirteen thousand full-time employees. The Retirement Trust and the Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB) Trust hold the assets of the Retirement Plan and the OPEB Plan. The university is require to fully comply with the GASB reporting requirements and the Trusts are managed by external firms that are restricted to investing in certain asset sectors.

The externally-managed Trust funds are allowed to invest in asset sectors such as U.S. And international equity, emerging markets debt and equity, absolute return strategies, private equity, real estate, global fixed income, high yield fixed income, bank loans, and Treasury inflation protected securities (University of Missouri, 2011). This fund represents the pension and OPEB benefits for a wide variety of different types of employees including those within the MU Health Care teaching hospitals and extensions. At June 30, 2010, the University's financial position remained sound with total assets in the neighborhood of five and a half billion dollars and liabilities of roughly three point seven billion dollars (University of Missouri, 2011).

Pension Funding

The retirement plan is a single employer defined benefit plan for all qualified employees. Full-time employees vest in the retirement plan after five years of credited service and become eligible to start receiving benefits based on age and years of service. The compensation base is determined by the five highest years of salary and credit is also given for additional services such as teaching summer classes. There are also many options for employees or former employees to receive their benefits. Vested employees who are at least 55 years of age that have worked at least ten years or more can opt for an early retirement option at a reduced benefit rate. There are also options for employees to covert a significant portion of their retirement benefits into a lump sum payment.

Figure 1 - Pension Benefits Total Membership (University of Missouri, 2011)

The University's contributions to the retirement plan are equal to the actuarially determined employer contribution requirement which is determined as a percentage of the payroll rate. The retirement plan was fully funded (100.9%) as of October 1, 2009 because of the growth of active employees contributing to the plan. The financial statements have also presented required supplement information in regards to the pension plan. However, there will be new guidelines that are scheduled to take effect in the 2015 fiscal year that are designed to provide additional information in regards to pension expenses (Kiley, 2012).

It is noted that many pension plans will appear to be less healthy because of the way that the new requirements will allow the universities to calculate interest rates. As opposed to using a rate of roughly eight percent as the basis for the pension plan growth rate, these funds will be calculated with a grow rate of four percent based upon a historical municipal bond rate. Using a lower rate could significantly hamper the growth of the funds as well. Although this will be a conservative perspective on the fund's investment activities, it will require that more resources be dedicate to the fund which could hamper growth. However, at the same time the University should be better covered in the event of a future recession.