Kai Belton

Thanks to sound fiscal policies, Connecticut has made significant progress in strengthening its pension funds for retired state workers and addressing legacy debt.

The improvements in the State Employees’ Retirement System (SERS) and Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS) are detailed in reports released this week. Our latest independent valuations found both systems to be at their highest funding levels in decades.

The majority of our debt as a state came from decades of underfunding our retirement programs for teachers and state employees. With 13 straight years of the legislature making full payments into these systems, as well as policies we adopted in 2017 that use surpluses to pay down debt, we’ve managed to pay off $8.6 billion of debt early, which saves taxpayers $730 million annually.