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CalPERS released its annual financial report, which provides a detailed summary of the pension plan's investment activities and performance over a one-year period ended on June 30, 2015. The 2015 CalPERS Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) (PDF) presents an in-depth statistical analysis of pension and health finances of the System and its thousands of contracting public agencies in California cities, counties, and special districts.
"The CAFR is another example of CalPERS' commitment to informing our members, employer agencies, and the public through clear channels of communication and disclosure," said CalPERS Chief Executive Officer Anne Stausboll. "Accountability and transparency are essential elements of building and maintaining the confidence of the public we serve, and this annual report is a major part of that ongoing responsibility."
Significant data in the CAFR for fiscal year ended June 30, 2015, includes:
- A thorough breakdown of CalPERS' investment portfolio that outlines the allocation of real assets, fixed income, and public and private equity investments with assets standing at more than $301 billion. Stock holdings figures and California-based investments totaling $26.6 billion are also noted.
- A funding level of 76.3 percent for the Public Employees' Retirement Fund (PERF) as of June 30, 2014, reflecting positive growth of more than 6 percentage points. As a result of lower-than-expected investment returns the PERF funded status has been estimated to have decreased to 73.3 percent as of June 30, 2015.
- CalPERS' investments in the PERF which earned returns of 10.9 and 10.7 percent over the past three and five years, respectively. For the first time since 2007, the PERF's three-year investment return exceeded our policy benchmark by 59 basis points and the five-year return by 34 basis points. Investments in income-generating properties like office, industrial, and retail assets returned 12.4 percent, outperforming the PERF's real assets benchmark by 90 basis points.
- CalPERS health program financial data; CalPERS reported a cost avoidance of approximately $106 million with the removal of ineligible dependents through the Dependent Eligibility Verification Process. CalPERS also negotiated heath care premium cuts of about 3 percent for nearly 600,000 members.
- A nearly 8 percent increase in the number of employers that contract with CalPERS to prefund future retiree health care obligations through theCalifornia Employers' Retiree Benefit Trust (CERBT) Fund. The CERBT Fund is an optional program administered by CalPERS that includes more than 400 contracted employers with assets under management of approximately $4.6 billion, a $600 million increase over the previous fiscal year.
Although the CAFR provides a comprehensive financial picture of the multidimensional CalPERS pension fund, more specific information regarding each of CalPERS' contracting public agencies will be available online in the Public Agency Actuarial Valuation Reports in late January. These reports will detail the financial status of each public agency pension plan and establish 2016-17 Fiscal Year employer contribution rates for 3,007 contracting public agency employers.
For more than eight decades, CalPERS has built retirement and health security for state, school, and public agency members who invest their lifework in public service. Our pension fund serves more than 1.8 million members in the CalPERS retirement system and administers benefits for nearly 1.4 million members and their families in our health program, making us the largest defined-benefit public pension in the U.S. CalPERS' total Fund market value currently stands at approximately $285 billion. For more information, visit www.calpers.ca.gov.
