Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Eaton County pension funded at about 60%; actuary recommends amortization options
Summary
MERS presented Eaton County's 2024 actuarial valuation showing a 60% funded ratio and an unfunded accrued liability of about $78.8 million; staff and commissioners discussed an amortization-extension option to ease near-term budget pressure while continuing additional payments to reduce the legacy liability.
Marnie Daggett, regional manager for the Municipal Employees' Retirement System (MERS), told the Eaton County Ways and Means Committee on Sept. 10 that the county's pension plan is approximately 60% funded in the 2024 actuarial valuation and carries an unfunded accrued liability of roughly $78,800,000.
Daggett said the plan's smooth actuarial rate of return for 2024 was 3.79% while the actual market return was 7.28%, reflecting multi-year smoothing of 2022 losses. The MERS investment return assumption used for the valuation is 6.93%. She said MERS' most recent experience study prompted only minor assumption changes for most groups and that MERS' assumed return remains slightly below comparable PA 202 guidance of 7.0%.
Why it matters: The committee heard that the county is paying required employer normal costs plus sizable payments on legacy unfunded liability. Table 6 in the valuation showed total plan liabilities of…
Already have an account? Log in
Subscribe to keep reading
Unlock the rest of this article — and every article on Citizen Portal.
- Unlimited articles
- AI-powered breakdowns of topics, speakers, decisions, and budgets
- Instant alerts when your location has a new meeting
- Follow topics and more locations
- 1,000 AI Insights / month, plus AI Chat
