From Data to Decisions: What the Latest PPD Means for Texas Pension Leaders
Texas pension trustees and administrators do not need another stack of numbers. They need reliable information that helps them ask better questions, spot risks and explain the value of their retirement systems.
The newly updated Public Plans Database can serve that purpose. For TEXPERS system-member trustees and administrators, the PPD is most useful as a decision-making tool—not a pension scorecard.
It can help retirement system leaders compare trends, review funding policies, prepare for changing membership and place investment results in a broader context.
What the PPD provides
The PPD includes annual data on more than 250 of the largest state and local pension plans in the United States. The sample spans fiscal years 2001 through 2025 and accounts for 95% of public pension assets and members nationwide.
The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College produces the database in partnership with MissionSquare Research Institute, the National Association of State Retirement Administrators and the Government Finance Officers Association.
The newly released update includes the latest information from plans that released financial reports through May 30, 2026. It includes FY 2025 data for 75% of the plans. Other plans are represented by their latest available reports.
The next PPD update is scheduled for January 2027.
Not every TEXPERS system member is included in the database. However, trustees and administrators can still use the national and Texas data to identify broader trends and compare their systems with plans that have similar designs, membership and funding structures.
Use the data as a benchmark, not a grade
The PPD Texas report includes plan-level information for 13 of the state’s largest public pension plans. Funded ratios among those plans ranged from 42.4% to 101.5%.
That range does not provide a simple list of winners and losers.
Each system has its own benefit design, contribution policy, workforce, investment strategy and legal framework. A plan that covers police officers and firefighters may face different workforce and retirement patterns than a plan for general employees or teachers.
Trustees should first compare their system with itself. Is the funded ratio improving or declining? Are required contributions being made? Are assumptions changing? Is the funding period getting shorter or longer?
The next step is to compare the system with similar plans. A useful peer group should include systems with comparable benefits, membership and funding rules.
Test the system’s funding policy
The aggregate national funded ratio reached 79.1% in 2025. That was up from 77% in 2024 and 71.9% in 2013, according to the PPD national report.
The improvement provides useful context, but the national average should not become a target for every plan. A funded ratio is a measure taken at a single point in time. Trustees also need to understand the system’s funding direction.
The Texas report offers another helpful comparison. In 2025, required public pension contributions in Texas equaled 4.4% of state and local governments’ own-source revenue. The comparable national figure was 6.5%.
That suggests Texas pension costs took up a smaller share of available public revenue than the national average. It does not prove that every Texas plan is adequately funded or that every required contribution was paid.
Trustees and administrators can use the PPD figures to support deeper questions:
- Is the employer making the full required contribution each year?
- Does the contribution policy respond when investment results fall short?
- How long will it take to pay down the unfunded liability?
- How would a recession or lower investment returns affect contributions?
- Is the current funding plan affordable and sustainable?
Administrators can also use the comparisons when preparing reports for boards, employers, lawmakers and other stakeholders.
Prepare for changing membership and cash flow
One of the report’s most important findings involves the number of workers supporting each retiree.
In 1992, public pension systems had about 2.5 active workers for every person receiving benefits. By 2025, that ratio had fallen to 1.2 active workers for each annuitant.
Public pensions are pre-funded, so retiree benefits do not depend only on current workers’ contributions. Still, a growing retiree population can change how money moves into and out of a pension fund.
Trustees should know how their own active-to-retiree ratio has changed. Administrators should regularly update projections for contributions, benefit payments and payroll growth.
The trend can also help guide discussions about liquidity. A system needs sufficient readily available assets to pay monthly benefits without being forced to sell long-term investments at an inopportune time.
Questions for system leaders include:
- How many active employees does the plan have for each retiree?
- How will benefit payments change during the next five to 10 years?
- Will contributions keep pace with those changes?
- Does the investment portfolio provide enough liquidity?
- How would a hiring slowdown affect the system?
Keep investment results in perspective
Public pension plans earned an average return of 10.43% in 2025, compared with an average assumed return of 6.87%. The rolling 30-year return was 8.27%.
Those results offer useful benchmarks, but trustees should avoid judging an investment program by a single year. One strong year can follow a weak year, just as one market decline can interrupt a sound long-term strategy.
The PPD can help boards situate their returns within a broader context. Trustees can compare their system’s results with national averages and then examine why the results differ.
The goal is not to chase the highest return. A board must consider risk, cash-flow needs, fees, asset allocation and the system’s long-term obligations.
Trustees should ask:
- Did the system meet its policy benchmark?
- How much risk did the system take to earn its return?
- Are results being measured over appropriate periods?
- Is the assumed rate of return still reasonable?
- Does the asset allocation fit the system’s benefit and liquidity needs?
Use the report to strengthen communication
The PPD also provides trustees and administrators with facts they can use to explain public pensions.
More than 5,000 public retirement systems operate nationwide. Together, they hold about $6.5 trillion in assets, serve 15.5 million active employees and 12.4 million retirees, and distribute about $418.3 billion in benefits each year.
About a quarter of state and local government employees are not covered by Social Security. That includes nearly half of teachers and more than two-thirds of firefighters and other public safety officers.
Those figures help explain why sound pension governance matters. For many public employees, their pension is not simply one part of retirement income. It may be their main source of financial security after a career in public service.
Administrators can use the data in annual reports, member presentations, legislative materials and public education efforts. Trustees can use it when speaking with employees, retirees, elected officials and taxpayers.
The numbers provide national context, but each system should connect them with its own membership, funding history and economic impact.
Questions to take to the next board meeting
The latest PPD update gives Texas pension leaders an opportunity to review their systems through a wider lens. Trustees and administrators may want to bring these questions to an upcoming board meeting:
- How has our funded ratio changed during the past five and 10 years?
- Are all required contributions being made in full and on time?
- How do our assumptions compare with similar public pension plans?
- How is our active-to-retiree ratio changing?
- Do we have enough liquidity to meet future benefit payments?
- How do our investment results compare after accounting for risk and fees?
- What PPD findings would help us explain our system to members and stakeholders?
The value is in the questions
The PPD cannot tell a board whether every policy is right for its system. It cannot replace an actuarial valuation, an experience study, an investment report, or advice from professional staff and consultants.
It can help trustees and administrators see how their system fits within the broader public pension landscape.
For Texas pension leaders, the report’s value lies not in a single funded ratio or investment return. Its value comes from using the data to ask better questions, test long-term plans, and make informed decisions on behalf of the public employees and retirees they serve.
Source: Public Plans Database, fiscal years 2001-2025. National information extends through 2025. Texas plan-level figures are as of 2024, while the Texas public-cost comparison extends through 2025.
About the Author: Allen Jones is the director of communications and event marketing for TEXPERS, where he leads editorial strategy, member communications, conference marketing, and digital engagement initiatives for Texas public employee retirement systems. He began his journalism career in 1998 and has worked in journalism and communications for more than 25 years.
AI-assisted content notice: Generative AI was used under the direction of writer and editor Allen Jones to help review source materials, organize key findings, develop an initial draft, and create the accompanying banner image. Jones reviewed the original sources, fact-checked and revised the draft, and made all final decisions about its content and presentation.