Actuary says new model shows tighter UI trust fund; solvency surcharge likely triggered

The Employment Security Department’s actuary presented the March Trust Fund report and recommended adopting an updated time‑series model that the agency said better captures recent wage and claims trends than the prior regression model.

The presenter, who identified themself during the meeting as the agency actuary, said the new model has shown error rates within roughly 5% over recent quarters and projects months of benefits below the seven‑month benchmark used for some solvency decisions. Under the updated model the trust fund balance was reported near $3.5 billion at the end of March and projected at about $3.3 billion by year‑end absent additional changes.

The actuary contrasted the two approaches: the prior model projected benefits months above seven in some forward years, while the updated time‑series model shows more near‑term variation and lower months of benefit that would make solvency measures more likely to apply. "The update model outperforms the old model by a huge margin," the presenter said, describing three quarters of improved forecasting performance.

Committee members pressed for comparisons with other states and for more context on the solvency measures. The presenter noted that the Department of Labor uses a 12‑month benefit measure for comparisons and offered to follow up with additional cross‑state data.

What happens next: the agency plans to adopt the updated model for its next report and retire the old model; committee members requested additional state‑by‑state comparison data to better understand the solvency threshold and tax implications.

Note on attribution: the actuary self‑identified in the meeting; the meeting introduction named a different actuarial manager, and the committee record contains inconsistent naming; this article attributes technical analysis and figures to the meeting presenter and to "the agency actuary" where appropriate to avoid misidentification.