City actuary outlines pension and retiree-health funding plan, projects steady 2.5% budget growth

Joe Newton, the actuary that advises Warwick on its pension plans and retiree medical program, presented an update on the status of those programs and the city's 2026 budget estimates during a Finance Committee meeting.

Newton told the committee the city now manages four pension plans and a post-retirement health care (OPEB) program and that a funding strategy the council adopted two years ago establishes a 2.5% annual growth target for combined contributions. "This plan is moving you towards getting rid of those over time," Newton said, adding the approach pools contributions and directs leftover funding into an OPEB trust to mitigate risk.

Why it matters: Under the current strategy the city set an across-the-board contribution baseline of about $55.2 million for fiscal 2025 that grows at 2.5% to roughly $56.6 million for fiscal 2026, Newton said. Because much of the contribution pays for past unfunded liabilities, he said, the city's employer contribution would be much lower—about $15 million—if the plans were fully funded today.

Newton reviewed several plan metrics: the…