Pub. 11 2022 Issue 2 33 assets makes plan assets sensitive and investment returns volatile. Moody has calculated that, in some instances, it would only take about a 5% loss next year to reverse the positive effects of a 25% return in 2021. Further, Moody anticipates a greater than one-in-six chance that a pension plan with a 7% assumed annual return will suffer a loss of 5% or more in a given year. Second, unfunded pension liabilities are still very high and represent a large amount of debt. Moody’s estimates that net pension liabilities are still above $4 trillion, larger than the municipal bond market, even after the high investment returns realized in 2021 when adjusting for a conservative investment return assumption. Many states have enacted reforms to their pension plans to help keep liabilities down in the future, but the impact of those reforms will be felt further down the road because they are often effective only for new hires. Lastly, keep in mind that the statistics presented are aggregated to show broad trends. Individual states’ plans may differ and may not be as well-positioned as the average plan, and some municipalities even have their own local plans, which could have drastically different funded positions and investment outcomes. Despite the fact that it is comforting to know that net pension liabilities have generally fallen and that municipalities may benefit from lower pension contributions, prudent municipal bond investors should continue to carefully monitor individual municipalities’ specific exposure to pension liabilities. Dana Sparkman, CFA, is Senior Vice President / Municipal Analyst in The Baker Group’s Financial Strategies Group. She manages a municipal credit database that covers more than 150,000 municipal bonds, providing clients with specific credit metrics essential in assessing municipal credit. Dana earned a bachelor ’s degree in finance from the University of Central Oklahoma as well as the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. Contact: 405-415-7223, dana@GoBaker.com.
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