Chicago City Wire reports:
The Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund (CTPF) paid out $1.5 billion last fiscal year, mostly on benefits to retirees.
But it only earned $7.8 million on its investments, according to a filing it made with the Illinois Department of Insurance.
In addition, it cost CTPF $35.8 million in investment expenses to earn that $7.8 million, according to the filing, meaning it actually lost $28 million between July 1, 2015 and June 30, 2016.
Years like 2016 elucidate how the fund, which is supposed to pay for the current retirements of some 28,000 former CPS teachers and administrators as well as provide future benefits to another 29,000 active ones, is running out of money, and time.
At $10.1 billion, CTPF is less than half the size actuaries say it needs to be to earn enough investment returns to pay its obligations.
Because it isn't, Chicago taxpayers and current CPS employees have been propping up the fund. Their annual contributions aren't invested but, rather, used to pay expenses and current beneficiaries.
There's more:
Annual payouts to beneficiaries have risen 61 percent since 2007, from $906 million to $1.46 billion. The average CPS teacher salary has risen, too, by 58 percent, from $59,458 to $94,064.
An up year in the stock market and they get less than a 1% return!!!!
