The Kentucky Public Pensions Authority, a $24.9 billion system overseeing all of the public pensions in the state of Kentucky, released its annual comprehensive financial report, covering fiscal year 2023, which ended June 30, 2023.
The KPPA oversees the County Employees Retirement System, Kentucky Employees Retirement System and the State Police Retirement System funds. The total return of all pension funds was 9.54% in fiscal year 2023, a significant increase from 2022’s 5.3% loss. The total return of all insurance trusts was 10.15% in fiscal 2023, up from negative 5.34% last fiscal year.
Funded status increased across all tracked pension systems, although funded status continues to be abysmal for the KPPA system. CERS and KERS are divided into hazardous and nonhazardous funds, based on the types of work done by those covered in each fund. CERS NH funded status increased to 56.1% in 2023 from 52.0% in 2022, while CERS H increased to 51.4% from 47.6%. The funded status of KERS NH and KERS H rose to 21.8% from 18.5% and to 65.4% from 63.2%, respectively. The funded status of SPRS rose to 54.0% in 2023 from 52.5% in 2022. In 2018, the funded statuses of all these pension funds were 52.7%, 48.4%, 12.9%, 55.5% and 27.1%, respectively.
The increases in funded status were a result of strong investment returns, as well as funding that was approved by the state’s legislature. In total, contributions of $240 million were made to KERS NH for fiscal year 2023 and 2024 and $215 million for SPRS for fiscal year 2023.
The one-year returns for all tracked pension and insurance funds are as follows:
- CERS – 10.24%
- CERS Hazardous –10.33%
- KERS – 6.96%
- KERS Hazardous – 9.46%
- SPRS – 7.58%
- Total Pension: 9.54%
Insurance fund returns:
- CERS – 10.33%
- CERS Hazardous –10.11%
- KERS – 9.87%
- KERS Hazardous – 9.29%
- SPRS – 9.46%
- Insurance Total – 10.15%
The KPPA manages the pensions and insurance for approximately 421,069 members, who are current and former Kentucky state employees, as of June 30, 2023.
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