8,436 research outputs found
History and Options Regarding the Unfunded Liabilities of Alaska’s Public Employees’ and Teachers’ Retirement Systems
In early 2003, financial analysts working for the State of Alaska announced that the two largest
public employee retirement systems in Alaska had become significantly underfunded.3 From
fiscal year 2006 (July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2006) to date, the state has paid 534.7 million annually)—to pay down these obligations, which will be called
“unfunded liabilities” in this paper.4
The State of Alaska has substantial unfunded liabilities remaining to pay off for these two
systems, the Public Employees’ Retirement System (PERS) and the Teachers’ Retirement
System (TRS). There is uncertainty about the size of these unfunded liabilities, and there are also
different ways of calculating them. For example, the State of Alaska’s snapshot balance-sheet
approach, subtracting the accrued liabilities from the assets, based on their actuarial value,
produces an estimate of 33.9 billion for the state’s unfunded liabilities.
6
The State of Alaska has committed to paying off the unfunded liabilities under a 25-year
amortization schedule that started in 2014, so another highly relevant measurement of those
liabilities appears to be the amount actuaries for the state currently project will be needed under
that pay-off plan, which runs through fiscal year 2039. The state’s actuaries project that from
fiscal year 2019 through fiscal year 2039 the state will pay a total of 6.609 billion, this estimate of 10.815 billion is an
estimate of the total amount needed to eliminate the unfunded liabilities of PERS and TRS under
the 25-year amortization schedule the state adopted in 2014.
4
Note that this state assistance is above and beyond the amount the state is projected to owe in its
role as employer in the normal course of funding the two systems.8 Employers other than the
state—primarily local governments and school districts—also participate in PERS and TRS, and
the figure for state assistance covers not only unfunded liabilities attributed to the state but also a
portion of the unfunded liabilities attributed to non-state employers. As explained more later, the
state has assumed, by statute, the responsibility to pay for a share of the unfunded liability of
these other employers.
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This paper:
• Describes the structure of the Alaska public employee retirement systems in the context
of some unusual features of public employment on the Last Frontier
• Reviews how the problem of unfunded liabilities came about
• Examines how concerns over unfunded liabilities produced both changes and proposed
changes in the retirement systems over the past dozen years, including proposals for
changes in the allocation of burdens between the state and local governments in paying
for retirement benefits
• Describes current projections of future amounts needed to pay off the unfunded liabilities
• Discusses how future estimates of the unfunded liabilities might change in response to
economic and demographic factors
• Discusses legal provisions protecting the rights of beneficiaries of the retirement systems
• Lays out options for policymakers—other than the current policy of paying down the
unfunded liabilities over time—including buyout, bailout, and bankruptcyNorthrim Bank
University of Alaska Foundatio
A System Complexity Approach to Swarm Electrification
The study investigates a bottom-up concept for microgrids. Financial analysis is performed through a business
model approach to test for viability when replacing a researched energy expenditure baseline in Bangladesh. A
literature review compares the approach to current trends in microgrids. A case study of Bangladesh illustrates the
potential for building on the existing infrastructure base of solar home systems. Opportunities are identified to improve
access to reliable energy through a microgrid approach that aims at community-driven economic and infrastructure
development by building on network effects generated through the inclusion of localized economies with strong
producer-consumer linkages embedded within larger systems of trade and exchange. The analysed approach
involves the linking together of individual stand-alone energy systems to form a microgrid that can eventually
interconnect with present legacy infrastructure consisting of national or regional grids. The approach is likened to
the concept of swarm intelligence, where each individual node brings independent input to create a conglomerate of
value greater than the sum of its parts
Private equity in emerging markets
Why is there such a strong private equity market in the United States or the United Kingdom? Why is activity relatively low in several other economically important countries? And why is it zero or close to zero in many emerging regions? Spatial variations of private equity activity result from numerous factors. In this paper I summarize the literature contributions on the determinants of national private equity activity and comment on the consequences for the development of the private equity asset class in emerging markets.Private Equity; Emerging Markets;
A Lighthouse Effect in Eta Carinae
We present a new model for the behavior of scattered time-dependent,
asymmetric near-UV emission from the nearby ejecta of {\eta} Car. Using a 3-D
hydrodynamical simulation of {\eta} Car's binary colliding winds, we show that
the 3-D binary orientation derived by Madura et al. (2012) is capable of
explaining the asymmetric near-UV variability observed in the Hubble Space
Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys/High Resolution Camera (HST ACS/HRC)
F220W images of Smith et al. (2004b). Models assuming a binary orientation with
i ~ 130 to 145 degrees, {\omega} ~ 230 to 315 degrees, PAz ~ 302 to 327 degrees
are consistent with the observed F220W near-UV images. We find that the hot
binary companion does not significantly contribute to the near-UV excess
observed in the F220W images. Rather, we suggest that a bore-hole effect and
the reduction of Fe II optical depths inside the wind-wind collision cavity
carved in the extended photosphere of the primary star lead to the
time-dependent directional illumination of circum-binary material as the
companion moves about in its highly elliptical orbit.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in ApJ
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