Welcome to the latest edition of This Week in Pensions! We have gathered the best stories about pensions and retirement security from the previous week. This is the news you need to know in the fight for a secure retirement.
NPPC Highlights: ICYMI
Women’s History Month may be over, but we are advocates for the advancement of women in public service all year round. Check out our latest blog about the inequities women face when planning for retirement, The Hidden Struggle: Challenges Women Face in Saving for Retirement.
NCPERS Releases 2026 Public Retirement Systems Study
The National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems announced the release of its comprehensive annual snapshot of America’s public pension systems this week.
The 2026 Public Retirement Systems Study analyzes the “fiscal health, governance practices, and emerging priorities” of 149 public pension systems across the country, providing a thorough look at the overall state of retirement security in the public sector.
Key findings from the study include:
- – Systems that consistently get their full actuarially determined contribution report much higher funded ratios than those that do not.
- – Systems with fiscal year-end dates in the first half of 2025 reported average one-year investment returns of 10.2% and ten-year returns of 7.5%.
- – There is a growing trend among systems to modify investment allocations to tackle market volatility and rising interest rates by increasing fixed income and lowering private equity.
- – Over 35% of system administrators report utilizing artificial intelligence for system management. AI features such as fraud detection and participant communications have seen significantly higher usage than in prior years.
Oklahoma Lawmakers Advance Responsible State Budget
The Oklahoma Legislature has done an about-face from earlier spending proposals, which included a proposed funding cap on the Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS), and has now agreed to properly fund TRS, all while raising teacher salaries by $2,000 and funding cost-of-living adjustments for all retired public employees.
“To my knowledge, unless and until somebody tells me differently, this is the earliest budget announcement that people can recall,” said House Speaker Kyle Hilbert.
Governor Kevin Stitt also remarked on the speed with which the general assembly has agreed on a state budget. “I was asking the pro tem and the speaker… ‘What are we going to do the rest of April and May? I mean, we’re not going to have anything to argue about if we get the budget done so early,” Stitt said. “But I am so excited to get this thing done early and get it locked down.”
State employees in Oklahoma have not seen an across-the-board COLA since 2020.
Political Agendas Continue to Creep into Public Pensions
Political turmoil is digging its heels into state-administered pension systems as the country grapples with continued immigration enforcement, a war with Iran, and ongoing questions about private equity’s role in labor.
Advocates in Minnesota rallied around a movement that would push state investors to redirect state funds currently tied up with Palantir Technologies, an intelligence company that provides surveillance tools used by the military and the Department of Homeland Security. Palantir’s practices have come under public scrutiny following ICE raids, many of which have had deadly consequences. Minnesota’s State Board of Investment (SBI) manages approximately $161B of Minnesota public employees’ salary contributions and taxpayer dollars.
Minnesota is one of several states with funds invested in Palantir stock, along with California, Maine, New Jersey, New York, and Oregon. Opposition groups have raised questions about so-called “socially-responsible investing policies” adopted by state governments.
“Pension funds that should someday care for them have their money invested in a company building AI surveillance systems that could be used to harm those same families or their loved ones,” said Kenny Morris, campaigns strategist for the American Friends Service Committee. “Teachers and medical professionals who spend their days caring for community members are outraged that their pensions are being tied up in companies like Palantir.”
The war in Iran is also a hot-button topic for pension system managers. Kansas Public Employee Retirement System (KPERS) Chief Investment Officer Bruce Fink discussed this week that the system’s “exposure to companies, especially those in the oil and gas industry, that could stand to be affected — positively or negatively — from the war.”
Addressing the uncertainty of how the current military conflict will affect KPERS, Fink went on to say, “We’re not going to necessarily react to events in real time, but we do monitor and want to be sure that we understand what our exposure might be and whether any of the exposure to the conflict or the war area might be permanently impaired as a result of what’s going on there.”
Be sure to check back next Friday for the latest news in the fight for a secure retirement! For now, sign up for NPPC News Clips to receive daily pension news from across the country directly to your inbox.