Connecticut’s $17 billion teachers’ pension returned an average of 3.2 percentage points less than its 8.5 percent assumed annual rate of return between fiscal 2001 and 2015, the sixth-widest gap among 112 state retirement funds over the period, according to data compiled by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. The difference between assumed and actual returns of Connecticut’s municipal employee and state workers’ pensions wasn’t much better, ranking eighth and 15th-widest, respectively, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. “Plans are aiming to hit their assumed return and so when they fall short, there’s something wrong with the system," said Jean-Pierre Aubry, associate director of state and local research at the Center for Retirement Research. “Either someone is telling them to set it too high or the investment manager isn’t hitting his goals." Connecticut’s pensions had less than half the assets needed to pay its $63.7 billion of pension promises, according to the most recent audited figures. In 2015, its retirement system was the fourth-worst among U.S. states behind New Jersey, Kentucky and Illinois, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
