State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

Virginia Poised to Lead on Risk Analysis of State Pension Investments

Stateline: Virginia may become a leader among states in monitoring the fiscal strength of its pension funds.

The Virginia Commission on Employee Retirement Security and Pension Reform, created last year at the urging of Republican House Speaker William J. Howell, voted in December to propose two retirement system reforms to the legislature and three procedural changes to the Virginia Retirement System’s (VRS) board of trustees.

One would require the Virginia Retirement System to regularly publish stress test analyses that evaluate investment and contribution risks over the next 20 years. These tests provide estimates of the future financial position of pension funds under various economic and investment return scenarios. This reform was based on work done in 2014 by the Society of Actuaries’ Blue Ribbon Panel on Public Pension Plan Funding.

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