Pension costs to rise

Washington recently changed its assumptions for paying for public-employee pensions, a move that means higher costs in 2013 for workers, the state and local governments.

In a little-noticed vote last month, the state’ s Pension Funding Council unanimously agreed to lower its assumption of future earnings on pension investments from 8 percent to 7.9 percent in 2013-15.
That was the first step toward meeting state actuary Matt Smith’ s recommendation of a 7.5 percent rate to guide earnings over the next 50 years. Smith has suggested a stair-step approach lowering the rate 0.1 percentage point in each of the next five budget cycles.