The MOSERS Board of Trustees met for their regular quarterly meeting on September 19, 2024. Since the official minutes of that meeting won't be available until after they are approved at the next quarterly board meeting, we are providing this summary in order to get information to you more quickly. Please watch the video above and read the information below to learn more.

Welcome to this edition of A Moment with MOSERS!

On September 19, the MOSERS Board met for its regular third-quarter meeting.

We welcomed our newest Board member, Senator Doug Beck, to his first MOSERS Board meeting. Senator Beck was appointed to the MOSERS Board in July and replaces Senator John Rizzo.

As always, the main objective of Board meetings is to ensure the long-term sustainability of promised benefits. To that end, the top priority of this meeting was certifying the employer contribution rate for fiscal year 2026. The employer contribution rate is the percent of payroll that a MOSERS-covered employer contributes each pay period to properly fund the plan.

As I’ve discussed in the past, the Board has made significant changes to the MOSERS funding policy over the past few years. These changes are intended to help improve the System’s funding in the long-term, all while knowing in the short-term the changes would cause the funded status to fall, and the contribution rates to increase.

Over the past year, I along with the System’s actuary have discussed potential additional changes to increase plan funding. As you may recall, at the September 2023 meeting, the Board adopted a minimum employer contribution rate of 32% to be phased in over three years during fiscal years 2025 through 2027.

Sticking with this phase-in plan, the MOSERS Board certified the MSEP contribution rate for fiscal year 2026 at 30.25% of payroll. The minimum contribution rate policy is designed to increase the plan’s funded status more rapidly, albeit gradual, than without the policy.

At the meeting, we also discussed the MOSERS investment portfolio. For fiscal year 2024, the MOSERS portfolio returned 6.6% net of fees, outperforming the policy benchmark return of 5.8%. This outperformance by staff added approximately $74 million in additional value. As long-term investors, MOSERS strives to maximize long-term investment returns by investing system assets at a prudent level of risk to meet benefit payment obligations over the long term.

Thank you for watching this edition of A Moment with MOSERS. I hope you enjoy a beautiful Missouri autumn.