So far so good: Investments for pensions doing very well in 2021

Ohio’s five public pension systems are seeing robust investment returns so far in 2021 with increases ranging from 8.8% to 11.5% in the first two quarters, according to a new report by RVK, Inc.

The systems also saw strong returns in 2019 and 2020, after losses in 2018. Collectively, the five systems now hold $251 billion in investment portfolios.

The Ohio Retirement Study Council, a bipartisan pension watchdog panel, is scheduled to dig into the RVK report at its meeting Thursday.

In the first two quarters, the funds saw increases of:

h 11.5% for State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio.

h 11.3% for Highway Patrol Retirement System.

h 11.2% for Ohio Police & Fire.

h 9.7% for School Employees Retirement System.

h 9.6% for Public Employees Retirement - Health Care Fund.

h 8.8% for PERS - Pension Fund. Five of the six beat their benchmarks, which are used for apples to apples performance comparisons.

Thanks to a robust stock market in 2019, 2020 and so far in 2021, the funds have exceeded their assumed rates of returns.

PERS is Ohio’s largest public pension system with $119.3 billion in investments and STRS is second with $94.8 billion. Ohio Police & Fire has $18.5 billion, School Employees Retirement System has $17.8 billion and the highway patrol system is the smallest with $1.1 billion.

The funds serve 675,000 government employees, 1.1 million inactive members and 485,000 beneficiaries.

Ohio’s government workers do not contribute to Social Security so the public pension systems are their main retirement program. Benefits, contribution rates and other rules are established by state law and in some cases fund trustees.

Laura Bischoff is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.

DORAL CHENOWETH/COLUMBUS DISPATCH FILE The State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio serves nearly 493,000 Ohio public educators. STRS Ohio is one of the largest public pension funds in the country.