Description: In February 2008, the American Academy of Actuaries and and the Society of Actuaries Pension Section Council co-sponsored a lively roundtable discussion of the role of funding, disclosure and investment for public pension plans. This article presents the author’s observations and interpretations of the roundtable discussion.

Description: Responding to Sandy Mackenzie's "Report", these comments primarily suggest additional disclosures for assessing public pension plan financial health.

Description: Description of program parameters for next year.

Description: Commentary from section chair

Description: A response to American Legislative Exchange Council's report "Unaccountable and Unaffordable" in light of applicable Actuarial Standards of Practice.

Description: Paper examines the asset allocation behavior of state and local pension plans.

Description: Eric Friedman’s comments on ‘The Case for Stochastic Present Values,” by Dimitry Mindlin

Description: The current financial model put forth as the market value of public sector pension benefit liabilities is simply the expected cash flows of the accumulated benefit obligation, as defined for current private sector financial reporting, discounted using a risk-free yield curve. This model is in serious need of an overhaul. This monograph addresses this issue.

Description: Summarizes and explains the COLA and wage-indexed changes in Social Security program parameters announced by the Social Security Administration on October 13, 2022.

Description: The purpose of this paper is to explore a methodology for choosing among techniques for managing contribution volatility in defined- benefit pension plans. A frequently used – and as often criticized – method for managing contribution volatility is to base actuarial cost on smoothed assets. Our goal in this paper is to develop a methodology for measuring and evaluating the quantitative impact of competing asset smoothing policies. We proceed by investigating a series of basic pension metrics, evaluating the characteristics of each using a simulated pension plan. We then use normalized and weighted combinations of these metrics to determine an optimal smoothing policy.