Challenges currently associated with many of New Jersey’s public pension plans are necessarily stimulating discussion over potential solutions. A significant component of any possible solution would involve the Teachers Annuity Pension Fund (TPAF), with approximately 138,000 of the more than 400,000 active pension system members in 2014.

The primary goal of this research is to provide a preliminary estimate on both a municipality and school board basis for the potential assumption of part or all current and/or previously unfunded or underfunded employer contributions to TPAF.

This analysis is policy neutral and takes no position on the veracity of one potential solution to the State’s pension fund challenge associated with the TPAF over another. It simply seeks an informed answer to the potential (and estimated) impact on a municipality by municipality basis of each one percent “employer” contribution that would need to be raised on the local level should local boards of education be asked to fund part, or all, of the employer contribution. This analysis also develops this calculation with no assumption of offsetting savings from other changes in public policy (e.g. savings from health benefit programs that might be dedicated to offsetting new pension contributions from local employers).