They essentially punted the fiscal issues to the future no? And will pay more total for the pension accounts? Similar to refinancing a home loan to a longer term? It's my understanding that this is essentially what Illinois did it has absolutely fucked them
Not exactly.
The unfunded actuarial liability payment is an amount determined by a huge actuarial analysis that takes into account a whole bunch of inputs. It’s done every 2/3 years so that companies/gov entities can forecast out to make sure they aren’t completely cooked if they have an aging workforce ready to take pension funds out.
Obviously it’s not great to not be fully funded, especially when it’s the government who you’d expect to not be in this spot. But NYC has actually got the funded status up 10% from 2014 to above 80%.
I looked at their actuarial report and they generally don’t crazy amortization periods for reassessments which is what some places do. They started with a 22 year period in 2010 which is hilariously bad, for reference in Canada a 15 year period is considered absolute max.
The big thing that I would be curious about is how much does it impact the next assessment (NYC is due for one this year) that we’re 25 years post 9/11 and have the actuaries been able to properly assess the increased costs.
If the unfunded liability was not improving from 2014-2025 I would be ringing alarm bells but this shouldn’t sink NYC.
TLDR - This is just an accounting and actuarial estimate that is used in planning and not indicative of actual funding abilities.