Resources

A comprehensive report, from researchers at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, that examines the fiscal health of Connecticut's two largest public sector retirement systems: the State Employees Retirement System (SERS) and the Teachers' Retirement System (TRS). In addition to projecting the systems' finances going forward and presenting "alternatives to shore up the systems' finances and improve budget flexibility," the report, which was requested by the State of Connecticut, looks at the State's unfunded liabilities for both systems and the factors that have caused those unfunded liabilities to increase significantly over the years. The report finds "[t]hree factors underlie the current unfunded liability of SERS and TRS: 1) legacy costs from benefits promised before the systems were pre-funded; 2) inadequate contributions once the State decided to pre-fund; and 3) low investment returns relative to the assumed return since 2000."

On February 3, 2010, Governor M. Jodi Rell issued an executive order establishing the State Post-Employment Benefits Commission to examine the unfunded liabilities, costs, and budgetary impacts associated with the State's public pension systems and other post-employment benefits (OPEB). The governor executive order charged the Commission with delivering a report that: 1) identified the amount and extent of unfunded liabilities for pensions and other post-employment benefits; 2) compared and evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of various approaches for addressing unfunded pension liabilities and post-employment benefits; and 3) Proposed short and long-term plans for addressing unfunded pension liabilities and post-employment benefits.

Research report from the Connecticut General Assembly's nonpartisan Office of Legislative Research that identifies the state employee collective bargaining agreements that the General Assembly accepted or rejected between 1991 and 2001. Of the 128 agreements presented between 1991-2001, the General Assembly approved 108 and rejected 16. Legislative materials were unavailable on the outcome of 4 agreements.