
Maryland pension crisis: Maryland’s pension system faces financial crisis
- August 9, 2021
A pension fund in Maryland has faced a crisis of its own in recent weeks, with some employees taking drastic action to pay their state pensions, the Maryland Pension Fund Administration said Thursday.
The pension fund, called the Maryland State Pension System, is a state agency that funds more than 80,000 workers in Maryland and more than 8,000 of them are in Maryland, according to the state pension board.
The agency has reported a shortfall of about $200 million for the fiscal year that ended in September, but it has also said it could be out of money by the end of the year.
The state board said that for the month of September, more than 7,300 Marylanders took steps to pay $15 or more in state retirement benefits.
Some of those steps were voluntary and others were mandatory.
Those who didn’t pay a full $15 to the fund’s fund administrator were required to go through a second round of mandatory payments.
The new rules come on top of a $1 billion deficit the state has faced since the start of the fiscal 2018 fiscal year.
Employees have also started collecting pension checks to help cover the shortfall.
The Maryland State Teachers’ Retirement System has been on the receiving end of a state pension crisis in recent years, with a shortfall estimated at more than $1.5 billion.
The shortfall has forced some employees to take extreme measures to save money, including cutting back on spending or taking drastic steps to save for retirement.
Some have even cut back on social spending to pay for retirement, according a report from the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative advocacy group.