NEW YORK

Pension tab to drop for schools

Joseph Spector
Albany Bureau Chief
The state New York state Education Building in Albany

ALBANY – Schools will see a drop in their pension bill next year.

The Teachers Retirement System said this week that the rate will fall nearly 12 percent, as it first predicted in February.

Pension costs for the state's nearly 700 districts skyrocketed over the past decade because of the recession and weak returns on Wall Street.

But the cost has fallen over the past two years.

The pension tab will drop from 13.26 percent of a district's payroll to 11.72 percent of payroll, the retirement system said.

In 2014, the rate hit 17.53 of payroll — the highest since the mid-1980s.

Even with the rate decrease, the payments are still high compared to a decade ago.

The average rate was 4.37 percent in the 2000s and 5.66 percent in the 1990s, the pension system said.

"After five consecutive years of rising rates, a second straight decrease in the TRS contribution rate will provide welcome relief to school districts," David Albert, a spokesman for the state School Boards Association said.

"Still, it’s important to keep in mind that the 2016-17 TRS contribution rate of 11.27 percent is still higher than it was just five years ago, when it was 11.11 percent. So school districts aren’t fully out of the woods yet. "

Schools pay their pension tabs each fall.

The payment announced this week will be due in fall 2017. The next estimated rate will come out in November.

The retirement system, one of the largest public pensions in the nation, covers 426,000 educators in New York, including 268,000 active members and 158,000 retirees and beneficiaries.

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