The Joint Appropriations Committee will hear a report from the South Dakota Retirement System on Thursday afternoon. Among the many fascinating facts about the successful state pension system, SDRS will present this note on the growing labor efficiency of the program over its 50-year existence:
In 1974, the year Governor Richard Kneip created the SDRS, the agency disbursed $3 million in pension checks to 2,900 retired state workers. This year SDRS is writing checks worth $720 million to 33,200 beneficiaries. SDRS membership has more than quadrupled, and its assets have grown from $50 million to $14.5 billion.
Yet over those 50 years, SDRS staff has grown by 6, from 27 to 33.
In another slide, SDRS notes that it has been budgeted 33 employees for the last decade, even as the increase in pension participants has decreased the ratio of FTEs per 1,000 members from 0.44 to 0.33. Those 33 FTEs have still kept administrative costs below 2% of pension contributions and below 0.05% of assets:
SDRS is requesting one more auditor and one more worker to “facilitate succession continuity as senior staff near retirement.” (They’d prefer two more “succession planners”, but the Governor recommends just one.) Adding two employees would raise the FTE/1000 members ratio to 0.35 while keeping the SDRS budget at 1.8% of the expected $323 million in member contributions.
The SDRS and UJS are how all government ought to work. Efficiently and effectively.
It remains bewildering why this state, with too many colleges, is incapable and unwilling to turn the power of those college inward to improve 1) state government, and 2) the states primary, secondary, technical, and college education systems.
Kirby, at SD Searchlight, re-asks and answers the obvious question, https://southdakotasearchlight.com/2024/01/06/does-south-dakota-have-too-many-universities/ .
And while tongue in check, Kirby suggests the answer to building a new mens prison is in converting existing under-used assets.
How to wrest SD out of the Right’s hands? If John is correct, good government can occur.
For example. The January 6 hearings. Liz Cheney’s commitment to the project was hugely important, but she charged a price: to not talk about the other Republicans who enabled Trump and fed into the plot to overthrow the will of the voters.
… if we “win” because people are just too scared of what Trump represents, that’s not a power-building path. We can’t just wait for the implosion of authoritarianism’s most charismatic operative. The Left needs to really grapple with the terrain of culture war.
We’ve seen how a multiracial, multi-gender populism of the Left could exist. Part of the issue is our ability to define what that populism looks like….At moments like the 2020 racial justice uprising, we’ve seen glimmers of it. Or in this year’s strikes by autoworkers, healthcare workers, screenwriters, actors and so many others. Or in the campaigns to save abortion rights in states like Kansas and Ohio. These give shape to the kind of populism we need to win. We are the majority, and those who seek to take away our rights are the elite minority. And we need to express ourselves as a majoritarian project in order to win.
https://inthesetimes.com/article/left-right-antifa-progressives-lgbtq-abortion
Yes, we have a highly competent state retirement system. Commit to the goals of the organization, hire highly competent staff, vigorously oversee operations, and realize positive investment outcomes. The administrative costs of the system positively compare to Fidelity, Vanguard, and other industry leaders.
Fat on the bone.
They should get what they’re asking for because it makes sense for a seamless transition.
We might want to keep such a dandy system secret, though, due to our habit of electing people who can’t let sound things stand without sullying them with drama.