Public Pensions Guidelines

Follow the guidelines below and add the required documentation to your entity's website to qualify for a Public Pensions Transparency Star.

Efforts to enhance public pension transparency have been gaining momentum in recent years amid concerns regarding actuarial practices and plan solvency. House Bill 3310, passed in the 84th Legislative session increases accountability among public pension plans exceeding $100 million in asset value.

Public Pensions Summary

Post a summary table or listing separately from audits and financial reports from the most recent actuarial valuation, as well as a narrative section with explanations (or links to explanations) of terminology for each and comparisons with GASB, Pension Review Board or another applicable benchmark:

• Funded ratio.
• Amortization period.
• One-, three- and 10-year rates (as applicable) of return, with basic explanation (or link to basic explanation) of methodology employed.
• Assumed rate of return.
• Unfunded Actuarial Accrued Liability (UAAL) as percent of covered payroll.
• Actuarially Determined Contribution (ADC) Rate (if plan has UAAL) with comparison to current Total Contribution Rates.

You may wish to include additional pieces of data that provide context reflective of standards or conventions particular to your entity type. You may use the optional Public Pensions Summary Form (PDF) to complete the Summary section.

Visualizations

Post data visualizations using most recently completed/compiled data to your website with the following:

• Time trend going back five years showing actuarial value of assets versus actuarial accrued liability.
• Time trend going back five years comparing the ADC to the actual total contribution rate.

You may wish to include explanations or subsets of these trends in the visualizations or post additional visualizations that provide context reflective of standards or conventions particular to your entity type. See the sidebar for templates you may use to create required visualizations. The visualizations must be posted on the page itself or linked directly and must be — like all the required information on the transparency page or section — easy to view and interpret.

Documents

Post the following documents separately from the plan's audits and annual financial reports:

• Five most recent actuarial valuations.
• Five most recent audits or annual reports, including:
  • Statements of fiduciary net position.
  • Statements of changes in fiduciary net position.

Downloadable Data

Make the following data available for download in a spreadsheet or other machine-readable format to aid in researching your entity:

• Actuarial value of assets versus actuarial accrued liability over time going back at least five completed fiscal years.
• Dataset(s) containing the following for the last five completed fiscal years:
  • Total additions for the most recent valuation period by source, such as investment income, other income, employer, employee and other contributions.
  • Total deductions for the most recent valuation period by use, such as benefit payments, withdrawals, administrative expenses and investment related expenses.

Other Information

Your transparency site should also include a link to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts Public Pension Search Tool.