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Iowa

Overview

The Iowa Public Employees Retirement System (IPERS) is the primary public retirement system in the state, administering pension and other benefits for employees of more than 2,200 public entities in the state, including the state, school districts, and cities and counties. The IPERS Investment Board, whose members include the state treasurer and others appointed by the governor, manages IPERS assets. A separate system--the Municipal Fire and Police Retirement System of Iowa--administers pension benefits for many public safety personnel for cities with a population greater than 8,000.

Plan Design

Defined benefit plans serve as the primary retirement benefit for substantially all public employees in Iowa.

According to the US Government Accountability Office, 96 percent of employees of state and local government in Iowa participate in Social Security.

Access plan design detail

Authorizing Statutes and Board Structure

IA Code § 97B.1 establishes the Iowa Public Retirement System. IPERS is housed within the Iowa Governor's Office. The Governor is the plan sponsor and determines benefit levels. IPERS staff administers those benefits to IPERS members.

IA Code § 97B.8A creates the Investment Board, which includes 11 members. 

IA Code § 97B.8B creates the Benefits Advisory Committee, which is comprised of nine voting members representing constituent groups that have an interest in the retirement system and member benefits.  

Details regarding the composition of these and other retirement boards is accessible via the Retirement and Investment Board Characteristics search tool located at the bottom of this page.

Fiduciary Duty/Prudence Standard

IA Code § 97B.7A states:

1. Investment and investment policy standards. In establishing the investment policy of the retirement fund and providing for the investment of the retirement fund, the system and board shall do the following:
a. Exercise the judgment and care, under the circumstances then prevailing, which persons of prudence, discretion, and intelligence exercise in the management of their own affairs, not for the purpose of speculation, but with regard to the permanent disposition of the funds, considering the probable income, as well as the probable safety, of their capital.
b. Give appropriate consideration to those facts and circumstances that the system and board know or should know are relevant to the particular investment or investment policy involved, including the role the investment plays in the total value of the retirement fund.
c. For the purposes of this subsection, appropriate consideration includes, but is not limited to, a determination that the particular investment or investment policy is reasonably designed to further the purposes of the retirement system, taking into consideration the risk of loss and the opportunity for gain or income associated with the investment or investment policy and consideration of the following factors as they relate to the retirement fund:

  1. The composition of the retirement fund with regard to diversification.
  2. The liquidity and current return of the investments in the retirement fund relative to the anticipated cash flow requirements of the retirement system.
  3. The projected return of the investments relative to the funding objectives of the retirement system.

Legal Protections of Retirement Benefits

Campbell v. City of Marshalltown, 235 N.W. 764 (Iowa 1931)(indicating that duty to pay police pensions is purely statutory and not contractual); City of Iowa City v. White, 111 N.W.2d 266 (Iowa 1961)(holding that pension is protected once a member applies for retirement). (lA CONST., Article 1, §21) Source: Robert Klausner, Esq., State Constitutional Protections for Public Sector Retirement Benefits

See also the following search tools:

Retirement System Account Interest Policies Economic Actuarial Assumptions Retirement and Investment Board Characteristics
Information about interest rates applied to account balances of inactive plan participants Assumed rates of investment return and inflation Composition and characteristics of public retirement and investment oversight boards
Mortality Assumptions Plan Design Features Post-retirement Employment Policies
Public retirement system actuarial assumptions for mortality Numerous elements of retirement plan design Policies governing return-to-work for retirement system annuitants

More Data

Flag of Iowa (March 12, 1921)

Population (2025) 3,238,387

Iowa public pension statistics,
per U.S. Census Bureau as of FY 2025

Assets

$51.3 billion

Active Members

191,353

Annuitants

143,647

Benefits Paid

$3.1 billion

Employee Contributions

$713.4 million

Employer Contributions

$1.1 billion

Systems

Four state systems that together account for just under 100 percent of assets and public pension plan participants in the state. The Census Bureau also reports 6 local systems.

Other Resources

More Data


Become A Member

Becoming a member of NASRA offers a unique opportunity to join a community committed to the sound, efficient, and innovative stewardship of public retirement systems. Membership connects you with a network of professionals and experts, providing valuable insights into managing public retirement systems with a focus on sustainability and risk-averse strategies.

By joining NASRA, you gain the tools and resources to enhance the management of public retirement systems, ensuring their long-term success and reliability for generations to come.

What's New at NASRA: Government Spending Issue Brief

NASRA’s March 2026 update on government spending makes a basic but important point: public pension benefits are not paid out of a government’s day-to-day operating budget. They are paid from trust funds that employees and employers contribute to during an employee’s working years. Those trusts distribute more than $400 billion each year to retirees and beneficiaries in communities across the country. On a national basis, employer contributions to pension trusts in FY 2023 equaled 5.16 percent of direct general spending by state and local governments, which shows that pension contributions remain a limited share of overall public spending even though the level varies from one state to another. 
The brief also shows that pension costs should be viewed in the context of the changes governments have made over the past 15 years to strengthen plan funding. Following the 2008–09 market decline, nearly every state and many local governments adjusted contributions, benefits, or both to improve pension sustainability. More recent data show that employer contributions increased from FY 2022 to FY 2023, but pension spending as a share of total government spending remained broadly stable. The updated brief provides FY 2023 figures and also projects the aggregate pension spending rate for FY 2024, offering a useful snapshot of both current costs and the longer funding trend.