Pension plans placed on "watch list"

Intro:	A state audit of Missouri pension plans found the plans to be underfunded by sixteen billion dollars.
RunTime:	0:43
OutCue:	SOC

Wrap: State auditor Tom Schweich's report placed fifteen retirement and pension plans on a "watch list."

Deputy State Auditor Harry Otto says a lack in contributions and a poor investment performance can lead to a spot on the watch list.

Actuality:	OTTO1.WAV
Run Time:	00:20
Description: "If your investments are doing poorly and it's not growing, the plan ins't growing or keeping above a certain investment size so that's got future liabilities funded, that would drag you into a watch list position."

Otto said the auditor's office does not have a plan in place to check-up on the underfunded plans in the future.

Reporting from the state Capitol, I'm Michael Lindquist.

Intro:	The auditor's office placed fifteen retirement and pension plans on a "watch list" because of a lack in funding.
RunTime:	0:55
OutCue:	SOC

Wrap: State Auditor Tom Schweich's report looked at eighty-nine public pension plans that cover over five hundred past state or local governmental employees.

Although the audit raised questions about the pension's funds, Deputy Auditor Harry Otto says Missouri's contributions to the pension plans are higher than the national average.

Actuality:	OTTO2.WAV
Run Time:	00:21
Description: "Missouri, the way we computed it, about seventy-eight percent compared to a national average of about seventy-four percent, so we're better than the national average, these eighty-nine plans that we looked at as a group they are, but then some of them within the group are not at the average. They're somewhere below that."

Among those singled out are pension plans for employees of the Highway Patrol and the state Transportation Department along with local government worker plans in St. Louis and Kansas City.

Reporting from the state Capitol, I'm Michael Lindquist.

Intro:	A state audit finds retirement and pension plans are underfunded by sixteen billion dollars.
RunTime:	0:46
OutCue:	SOC

Wrap: The auditor's office placed fifteen plans on a "watch list" after a report found lacking contributions in pension and retirement plans.

Deputy State Auditor Harry Otto says there are a few reasons why those plans ended up on the "watch list."

Actuality:	OTTO3.WAV
Run Time:	00:23
Description: "There was a few different reasons or criteria to get them on the watch list. Among those were they had not made their required contribution recently or the last year, the funding ratio was probably below the average for the funds in Missouri."

Otto says there is no plan in place to check-up on those placed on the "watch list" in the future.

Reporting from the state Capitol, I'm Michael Lindquist.