National Association of State Retirement Administrators


Guiding Principles

NASRA supports the following guiding principles to retirement security and public plan sustainability:

  • Participation of all relevant stakeholders, including government employers, their plans, their employees, plan beneficiaries and retirees, and other taxpayers in discussions and processes about the design and financing arrangements of public retirement plans

  • Policy-driven decision-making that recognizes the retirement security and workforce management purposes of public employee retirement systems, and which is based on objective and pertinent information that fairly reflects the long-term time horizon and economic effects of public plan financing, benefit adequacy, and benefit distributions

  • Tailored solutions, achieved by affected stakeholders working through the state and local legislative and regulatory processes

  • Retention of core, indispensable elements of public plan design, namely, mandatory participation, shared financing, targeted income replacement, pooled investment and longevity risks, and lifetime benefit payouts

  • Removal of federal policy barriers to the preservation of these central retirement plan design features in the public sector and the adoption of federal policies that encourage their inclusion in the private sector. 

Resolution adopted by NASRA Members, August 11, 2010 and further Amended August 9, 2016. 

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