Blair pension plan stable

$1.6 million generated in first quarter to push fund to $35.9 million

HOLLIDAYSBURG -- Blair County pension plan investments generated $1.6 million during the first quarter of 2024, helping push the fund to $35.9 million at the end of March.

The improvement, from $34.66 million at the end of 2023 and from $33.51 million as of March 2023 -- plus contributions from the county's general fund and employees -- recently provided the county retirement board with a stable picture of a plan issuing about $650,000 to $700,000 in monthly payments.

"Things are going well for the (county's) plan ... a lot better than they were," investment adviser Pat Wing of Marquette Associates said after Wednesday's retirement board meeting, where he reviewed the plan's status. "But there's a lot of moving factors, too."

While the pension plan remains underfunded -- meaning that its obligations exceed its assets -- a report presented in September concluded that the plan is currently solvent and is likely to remain so based on a funding policy.

Based on the policy, the county is now transferring $459,375 a month from its general fund to the pension plan, to add up to $5,512,500 by the end of 2024 -- about $1 for every $7 paid in real estate taxes. The commitment is about $250,000 more than the county transferred in 2023 to the pension.

Wing, in acknowledging the plan's current stability, pointed to a page in his investment report showing the plan with $37 million in December 2014, about the same amount as it has today.

"The county's policy of putting more money into the pension plan has made the biggest difference," Wing said.

At one time, the pension plan's insolvency year was predicted for 2024, but as more money was contributed, that threat dissipated.

Commissioners, after selling Valley View Home in 2013, committed $8 million to the pension in four annual contributions of $2 million each. After the 2017 reassessment, commissioners began to rely on real estate revenue to fund the pension plan and end a foreseeable threat of the fund not having enough money to cover its obligations.

"But that's only if we follow our funding policies," Controller A.C. Stickel said after the retirement board meeting where he and fellow retirement board members Dave Kessling and James Carothers heard Wing's report. "If we don't follow that funding policy, then we risk going backwards, to where we used to be."

As far as Wing's reference to "moving factors" that could influence the pension plan, Wing said that counties, like many employers, have been increasing salaries to attract and retain employees.

Stickel, whose office manages the county's pension fund and distributions, said salary increases always prompt the pension plan's liabilities to increase.