Welcome to the TRS Online Pressroom
If you are a journalist and need information that is not listed, please direct your inquiries to:
Dave Urbanek
Public Information Officer
Phone: 217-753-0968
Cell: 217-720-3961
email: public_information_officer@trs.illinois.gov
For more contact information, click here.
Press Releases
The latest releases are listed below.
Issues Update
Read about the latest topics of interest facing TRS: Issues and Discussions
TRS Speaks
A sampling of the letters and emails that TRS has submitted to the media in Illinois and across the country in its effort to correct the record: TRS Speaks
A “New Reality” for TRS Funding – Acting Today to Prevent Future Insolvency
TRS is working to educate its members and the general public about a “new reality” in state government that throws the System’s long-term financial viability into serious doubt. Teachers’ Retirement System is not proposing any changes in member benefits.
In February TRS Executive Director Dick Ingram informed the System’s Board of Trustees that TRS can no longer be confident that the General Assembly will appropriate all of the money to TRS that is required by law. The State of Illinois’ growing budget deficit and the System’s $43 billion unfunded liability is together causing this “new reality” at TRS.
If the General Assembly does not continue to provide all of the funding called for in state law, calculations done by TRS actuaries show that the System could become insolvent as soon as 2030. Preventing insolvency may include significant changes for TRS – new revenues must be generated and if they are not expenses may have to be reduced.
Significant changes in revenue for TRS pensions or changes in the System’s benefits can only be made by the General Assembly. TRS has not suggested or proposed any plan to help solve this problem and specifically has not proposed any plan to change member benefits.
Response to Questions About TRS Investment Practices
From time to time, Teachers’ Retirement System gets questions from legislators, academics, members and others asking about the System’s investment decisions. Specifically, these questions center on whether TRS is making risky investments in order to “overreach” for investment returns that would help reduce our unfunded liability and whether the allocation of TRS assets to “alternative” investments is a prudent move.
The answers are: TRS does not invest with the goal of making up the System’s unfunded liability. TRS investments are prudent and chosen to fit below a predetermined low level of risk. Studies show that the risk incurred by TRS investments is lower than the median risk of comparable public pension plans,
Most recently these questions came from Crain’s Chicago Business, the Better Government Association and the Illinois Policy Institute. TRS believes it is helpful to share our extensive responses to the questions raised by these organizations and to correct misstatements.
For point-by-point answers to accusations raised in the Crain's story, click here.
For point-by-point answers to the Better Government Association, click here.
For point-by-point answers to the Illinois Policy Institute, click here.
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