Pension Transparency: New Hampshire

Analysis of New Hampshire's policies

Teachers, policymakers and taxpayers deserve accurate and reliable information about the costs and benefits of the public pension systems they support.

Just as teachers can easily obtain their salary schedules, they should have access to information about pensions so that they can make informed decisions about their career and retirement futures. It is unclear what information, if any, New Hampshire provides to teachers about their retirement benefits. No evidence could be found on the retirement system's website that New Hampshire provides teachers with information on how their benefits accrue for each year of service, the amount contributed each year by teachers and employers on behalf of teachers, or the projected value of a teacher's contributions based on different assumptions about the rate of return expected (e.g. 4%, 6%, and 8%), nor that the state provides teachers with transparent information about the opportunity cost of leaving contributions in the system by reporting how much might be earned if teachers were to put contributions into a personal retirement savings account.

Teachers in New Hampshire enroll in a final-salary DB plan, which means that employee and employer contributions should be sufficient to pre-fund the employee's pension. As New Hampshire has a multi-tier pension system, contributions that exceed the normal cost may be used to fund other teachers' benefits (so-called legacy costs). There is no evidence, however, that New Hampshire provides teachers with clear information about how their contributions are being used, including the extent to which current employer contributions are being used to subsidize the retirement benefits of teachers under other tiers.

Public disclosures on teacher pensions in New Hampshire also lack transparency. While New Hampshire reports projections for future contributions, it is only for a limited time period and not for the entire period required to fully amortize the system's total unfunded liabilities. It should also report these projections under a range of assumptions about the rate of return on investments, not just under the system's own assumption. Doing so would allow stakeholders in New Hampshire to appropriately assign risk to the system's obligations and provide clarity about potential unfunded liabilities facing taxpayers.

The Government Accountability Standards Board (GASB) requires public retirement systems to disclose who makes employer contributions, and the proportion of total contributions for which each contributor is responsible. All states' pension systems collect this information, and New Hampshire makes these data readily available.

New Hampshire, like most states, reports the portion of total pension contributions that is normal cost and the proportion that is amortization cost. However, the state does not report information about whether it has taken on debt in order to pay for current or future retiree benefits (e.g. through pension obligation bonds or other instruments for raising capital). Even if the state has not taken on debt, it should disclose this information to the public as it is an important indicator of a the state's overall health and stability.

Citation

New Hampshire Retirement System, Actuarial Valuation Report (draft), as of June 30, 2015. New Hampshire Retirement System, Cost-Sharing Multiple Employer Defined Benefit Pension Plan, Schedule of Employer Allocations and Schedule of Pension Amounts by Employer, June 30, 2015.

Recommendations for New Hampshire

Provide teachers with the information necessary to understand their retirement benefits.
New Hampshire should provide much more detailed information to teachers about how their benefits accrue at different points during their careers, as well as information about the opportunity costs related to any contributions made into the system. Because the system has multiple tiers, the plan should also disclose to teachers how their contributions are being used (i.e. whether they all are directed at prefunding their own retirement, or whether a portion of their contributions are used to help pay for retirement benefits of other members). Moreover, New Hampshire could provide detailed information about how employer contributions are used - e.g. to what extent the employer contributions for an individual teacher are used to subsidize teachers in different tiers and teachers with different tenure. 

Report to policymakers and the public data that give a complete representation of the system's financial health.
New Hampshire should also report projections for future contributions necessary to fully pay off its unfunded liabilities, and it should report these projections under a range of assumptions about its discount rate. Finally, the state should disclose in its reports whether or not the system has taken debt service to pay for retirement benefits.

State response to our analysis

New Hampshire was helpful in providing information that enhanced this analysis. The state also referred to its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report as providing funding projections under different discount rates and its benefit summary report as providing teachers with information about how their benefits accrue over time.

Last word

The citation noted in the CAFR only reports the current liability; it does not project funding needed to pay it down. As for the information provided to teachers, teachers would be best served if they received detailed information about their own individual benefits.