A new national study of the nation's 100 largest public pension plans once again shows Oregon PERS to be among the best funded in the United States.

This latest study was commissioned and released by Milliman, one of the world's largest independent actuarial and consulting firms. The study reviewed 100 of the nation's largest public defined benefit pension plans, offering an aggregate analysis of these 100 public pensions and their funded status. Milliman's has done a corporate pension funding study for the past 12 years, but this is its first complementary public pension analysis.

"Milliman is in a unique position to serve as the actuarial fact checkers for the self-reported interest rate and liability information provided by public pensions," said Becky Sielman, author of the Milliman Public Pension Funding Study. "Our approach was to start with a clean slate and recalculate each plan's liability with an eye toward an independent result."

PERS Coalition attorney Greg Hartman, who has reviewed the Milliman findings, says Sielman's group took extra steps to ensure an accurate review of the public pension funds.

"If someone complains that prior comparative studies are not accurate, this is the place to send them," says Hartman. "Without trying to get too technical, one of the difficulties of doing comparative studies of the funding of public sector plans is the lack of uniformity in assumptions and the valuation of assets. In this study, Milliman tries to normalize those factors by using market values and using their own actuarial assumptions, which are then uniformly applied.

"The bottom line, not surprisingly, is that the Milliman study shows Oregon PERS to be one of the better funded systems in the nation."

Earlier this year the Pew Center on the States issued a public pension report that listed Oregon PERS as 87 percent funded, which was the seventh best state retirement system in the U.S. at the time. The new Milliman rankings essentially confirm the Pew results: Oregon PERS is again at 87 percent funded in the Milliman rankings, tied with Florida for eighth place among general state pension funds.

Ahead of Oregon PERS in the Milliman rankings: Wisconsin (100 percent funded), Washington (97 percent), North Carolina (95 percent), Delaware and New York (both 94 percent), Tennessee (92 percent) and Idaho (90 percent).

The Milliman study also includes other large public pension funds. For example, the Sacramento County (Calif.) pension fund is tied with Oregon and Florida at 87 percent funded. Texas counties have their own unique fund (89 percent), as do New York teachers (100 percent). The best-funded public pension plan in the U.S. is the police and firefighters fund in Washington state (126 percent). The worst among the top 100 studied were the Puerto Rico government employees (a scary 7 percent) and the Puerto Rico teachers (21 percent). Of actual states, the worst two are Illinois and Kentucky, both at 36 percent. 

The full study methodology and other details are available on the Milliman website. A PDF version of the study results is attached to this article.