INPRS Podcast: Episode 2

Welcome to episode two of the INPRS podcast.

In this episode, we’ll be focusing on reviewing our FY 2021 performance and giving you an overview of what’s ahead.

Let’s dive in with a look back at fiscal year 2021.

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INPRS’s managed pension plans remain well-funded. Our overall estimated aggregate funded status increased from 70.4% to 71.6%.

Higher liabilities were driven by a decrease in the assumed future rate of return of our investments from 6.75% to 6.25%.

However, this was partially offset by higher than assumed investment returns and employer contributions collected during fiscal year 2021.

As a result, PERF and EG&C fund contribution rates will remain unchanged in 2023.

TRF ’96’s contribution rate will increase from 5.5% to 6.0%.

The board at it's most recent meeting decided to wait until this Spring to set the contribution rate for the 77 Fund that will become effective on January 1st of 2023. It is likely that the rate will be set somewhere between the current rate of 17.5% to as high as 18.3%. The final rate will depend upon our investment returns in the coming months.

The Teacher Pre-’96 Pay-Go plan improved from significant incremental appropriations in fiscal year 21.

Thanks to over $600 million in additional appropriations received in FY21, the funded status increased from 26.5% to 31.6%.

I am also pleased to to report that the TRF Pre-96 fund also recently received another incremental $545M from excess state reserves that will impact the funded status we report at this time next year.

INPRS is more than just managing money.  We serve the needs of our members.

Operationally, INPRS has shown year-over-year improvement in our indusrty benchmarking scores.

CEM, an independent global benchmarking firm which serves the pension industry, assesses our performance against our peers each year.

Since fiscal year 2013, INPRS has shown marked improvement each year, culminating in us achieving the top spot among our peers.

INPRS has the highest service scores with the lowest relative administrative cost among similar pension systems.

This is due to the team’s consistent effort to improve customer satisfaction and reduce expenses while providing great service.

We are thrilled with this assessment and it’s all thanks to our team here at INPRS.

Thank you, Team INPRS!

FY 2021 was also a year of other significant accomplishments.

We updated and communicated the organization’s values statement and advanced a broad cultural framework throughout the organization.

Our team implemented a call center retention program. This program focuses on call center recruiting, retention and training.

We refined the new member onboarding education process with tools and information resulting in more members making well-informed, intentional decisions regarding retirement plan selection.

Our team analyzed key processes and identified opportunities to implement technology to reduce manual intervention, increase speed and accuracy of processing, decrease service time, reduce risk, and personalize service to our customers.

While we achieved a lot in fiscal year 2021, the momentum doesn’t stop there. We’ve established an aggressive set of goals for the months and years ahead.

Each goal has several objectives we will relentlessly pursue. Today I want to share with you our nine core goals.

- Goal 1: Foster a culture where an engaged workforce advances the organization’s objectives.

- Goal 2: Deliver a quality member experience

- Goal 3: Engage members through effective communication, education, and collaborative relationships

- Goal 4: Deliver a quality employer experience

- Goal 5: Achieve the defined benefit target rate of return within accepted risk, cash flow, and cost constraints

- Goal 6: Provide competitive defined contribution investment options and services

- Goal 7: Ensure a value-based and competitive operating cost structure

- Goal 8: Proactively manage risk

- Goal 9: Advocate for legislative and regulatory policies needed to achieve strategic goals

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As always, INPRS is passionately pursuing goals to better serve our members and employers. After all, we only exist to serve you. If you need additional support for your organization or would like to arrange a meeting, please reach out to our team. We’ll provide contact information in the description of this episode.

Thanks for joining us for another episode and the opportunity to serve you. And, as always, thank you for your service.