WI public pension system recovering from ‘bad investment year’

By M.D. Kittle | Wisconsin Reporter

MADISON — The state’s auditor gives Wisconsin’s pension system two thumbs up, as the Wisconsin Retirement System lauds the pension plan as “one of the best-funded public employee retirement systems in the country.”

But a pension expert says the system, while comparatively solid, isn’t as strong as its supporters like think.

The Legislative Audit Bureau on Tuesday issued its unqualified opinion on the state Department of Employee Trust Funds’ 2011 financial statements, the latest available.

ETF released its 2011 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report on Tuesday. The agency was delayed in issuing the CAFR and expects to issue the 2012 report this fall, according to a department official.

“We are pleased to note that we did not identify any control or compliance concerns required to be reported under these standards,” the audit bureau notes in its report to the Legislature’s Audit Committee.

The Wisconsin Retirement System, the largest program administered by ETF, reported net assets of $73.9 billion as of Dec. 31, 2011, according to the CAFR. That’s down by $2 billion from 2010.

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