Plan Data: Arlington County ERS

Arlington County ERS Basics

• Established 1953
• Currently open to new hires
• Plan covers local employees
• Plan members covered by Social Security
• Single employer

Assets, Participants, and Benefits

State and local government pension benefits are paid from trust funds to which public employees and their employers contributed while they were working, not from general operating revenues. Trust fund assets are invested and grow over time. The combined value of defined benefit plan assets held by state and local governments as of Q2 2022 decreased to $5.3 trillion, from $5.7 trillion as of Q2 2022 (Federal Reserve Flow of Funds, June 2024). PPD data covers the period from 2001 to the most recently available plan reports, and the historical charts presented in this page mirror the period for which PPD data are available.

State and local employees make up around 10-15 percent of the US workforce. About a quarter of public sector workers are covered by a public pension in lieu of Social Security, including nearly half of all teachers and over two-thirds of firefighters and public safety officers. Public employees live in every city and county in the nation; more than 90 percent retire in the same jurisdiction where they worked.  PPD data covers the period from 2001 to the most recently available plan reports, and the historical charts presented in this page mirror the period for which PPD data are available.

Costs

The Annual Required Contribution (ARC) is the amount needed to finance benefits accrued each year, plus the cost to amortize unfunded liabilities from past years, minus required employee contributions. It is a projection that matches a yearly payment amount to a particular amortization period, taking into consideration an assortment of assumptions adopted by the plan. In practice, all plans do not calculate the ARC in the same manner.  Assumptions used to calculate the ARC reflect actual plan experience, including investment return , actuarial cost, salary growth, total payroll growth and mortality, as well as an adopted amortization method. These assumptions and methods will differ from one plan another, so caution should be taken when comparing ARC between plans.  PPD data covers the period from 2001 to the most recently available plan reports, and the historical charts presented in this page mirror the period for which PPD data are available.

Actuarial Funding

Investments

The major asset allocation classes presented in the PPD are generated from the specific asset classes that plans report. For consistent reporting in the PPD, the individual asset classes reported by plans are categorized as one of eight major asset classes: equity, fixed income, real estate, private equity, hedge funds, commodities, misc. alternative assets, cash, and other. For more details on the PPD allocation data please see documentation.

Cash Flows