Consultants say New Hampshire pension fund needs more cash

Print More

Consultants say state and local governments need to pump a lot more money into the New Hampshire’s pension fund for public workers over the next few years.

The New Hampshire Retirement System provides retirement funding for 20,000 retirees. About 50,000 active workers, including teachers, firefighters and police, contribute to it.

The good news is the fund earned 16 percent from its investments last year.

The bad news is that industry standards call for the pension fund to have at least 85 percent of its long term obligations on hand. Currently the pension is funded at only 63 percent, meaning it needs another $2.7 billion added.

Consultants are telling the fund managers that to make the fund healthy, contributions from the state and local governments need to increase to nearly 15 percent of workers’ salaries.

Hitting that mark will require an 84 percent increase for police contributions and about a 50 percent increase for teachers and most other public workers.

Comments are closed.