New county pension regulations will be ‘game-changer’
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Members of the Washington County Retirement Board learned Thursday that, within two years, they will be facing new standards for the accounting and financial reporting of pensions.
The Governmental Accounting Standards Board of the Financial Accounting Foundation, known as GASB, last year approved a pair of measures that will take effect in 2014.
Statements 67 and 68 “will change how governments calculate and report the costs and obligations associated with pensions,” according to a GASB news release. The statements are designed to increase the transparency, consistency, and comparability of pension information across governments.
Governments such as Washington County provide pension benefits through various types of defined-benefit pension plans, which specify the amount of benefits to be provided to the employees after the end of their employment.
Lee Martin, the county’s consultant from Peirce Park Group, Chester County, said he’ll hold a workshop for retirement board members, which include the county commissioners, treasurer and controller, this spring or summer.
“You’re at least a year away from that,” Martin said. “We’ll talk about the implications. It will be a game-changer.”
The latest statement for the county pension fund showed that, as of mid-February, it contained total assets of $117,006,660.
The total fund was up 13.6 percent for the year, according to Martin.
The board voted unanimously to allow its fixed-income manager to purchase bonds of shorter durations to keep the county from having to hold bonds at low interest rates if interest rates are going to be rising as economists have predicted.
Washington County officials learned in June taxpayer contribution to the employees’ pension fund will be $3.5 million, down from $3.7 million last year.
The taxpayers are making up for losses that date to the financial crash that began in September 2008. The portfolio was doing well in 2012 until the final quarter, when wariness about the “fiscal cliff” gave investors jitters because of the general uncertainty and unknown size of tax increases.