New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli recently announced that the state’s Common Retirement Fund enjoyed more than a 13 percent rate of return in the year ending March 31. The $176.2 billion fund exists to provide benefits to 1 million state and local-government employees, retirees, and beneficiaries. In his May 12 statement, the comptroller called the fund’s performance “stellar.”

Tom, before you inflict injury by trying to pat yourself on the back, let’s examine the word “stellar” from other than a one-year perspective. E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center points out that the state retirement fund’s performance has been sub-par over the last 15 years. Using the comptroller’s own assumption of projected average returns, the fund’s assets should be nearly $300 billion, not the current $176 billion. In other words, the fund has grown at an annual average rate of 5.8 percent, well below the optimistic figure you continue to use for fund appreciation.

During this same period, benefits paid from the state retirement fund have exploded from $3.7 billion to $9.4 billion (2013), a growth rate of 7.4 percent. Annual contributions by state and local employees have simultaneously dropped from $423 million to $269 million. And the lucky state taxpayers, whose “contributions” started at $165 million, are now coughing up $5.4 billion annually to cover the deficits of the fund’s general underperformance.

Oh, I forgot to tell you what else DiNapoli left out of his news release. His assumption of a long-term, fund growth rate of 7.5 percent allows him to boast that New York state’s two largest state-level pension systems are better than 90 percent funded. According to McMahon, this only works when using government accounting standards that permit rosy projections. Using more realistic standards adopted by most private-pension funds, these two pension systems are slightly less than half funded.

So what does this Kodak moment tell us? Benefits rise every year, performance can vary, the taxpayers are on the hook for growing liabilities, and DiNapoli is delusional in projecting fund performance.

Our esteemed comptroller is up for re-election in November. His attempt to convince us that all is well in pension land glosses over the underlying problem of a system that is seriously underfunded and in desperate need of a real solution. Me thinks we need someone in that position who will level with the taxpayers and fix the problem.

Now that would be stellar.

Contact Poltenson at npoltenson@cnybj.com

I receive a lot of questions about how schools are funded and how that money is spent. There is good reason for these questions because a lot of money is involved. State aid to schools comprises $21.8 billion — roughly 24 percent — of our $92.3 billion state operating budget. In addition, it is estimated local school taxes raised about $20.3 billion in 2013. The New York Lottery also funds education and provided $3.04 billion in 2012, according to the latest data available. This amount represents all of the proceeds received by the lottery after paying prizes and administrative costs.

The state Education Department periodically publishes a report, called the “Fiscal Profile of New York State School Districts.” The report is based on data collected from the Annual Financial Report — an unaudited document which displays a district’s reported expenditures and revenues. The report provides a five-year snapshot — from 2007-2011 — on individual districts and how they compare in different categories and against the state average wealth.

Specifically, I want to share information on school districts in my 120th Assembly District, which include Fulton, Hannibal, Mexico, Oswego, Phoenix, Pulaski, Sandy Creek, Altmar-Parish Williamstown, Baldwinsville, Belleville Henderson, and Central Square. The overwhelming majority of school revenue comes from state aid and local property taxes.

The amount a school district receives in state aid and from local property taxes varies widely among school districts. The amount a school gets in state aid depends on, among other things, the wealth of the area where the school is located. Since our area is a low-wealth area — in comparison to other parts of the state such as Long Island and the New York City suburbs — we receive more state aid in comparison to the revenue raised through local property taxes.

When you combine the 11 school districts in my Assembly district, about 55 percent of the budgets are funded by state aid. As a result, our region has largely been subject to the state’s fiscal management, and the changing economy. Through 2007-2011, our economy experienced a depression and has slowly been recovering. Beginning in 2009-10, monetary restraints caused the state to reduce its budget, which resulted in out-year cuts. In 2011-12, the state cut aid to schools by more than $2.5 billion. This too was to close the state budget gap. Districts and the state refer to this as Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA). This year, we restore $602.1 million of that GEA to districts.

One of the biggest items that sticks out in the report is the drop in student enrollment. Throughout the 11 school districts, student enrollment declined by 2,319 or 8 percent during the five years. This puts additional financial stress on our schools because their fixed costs have remained the same but they lose state aid as enrollment drops. Other items that have been cost drivers for schools as of late have been teacher retirement costs, which increased by $3.7 million or 26 percent, and health-care costs, which increased by $7.1 million or 14 percent.

I simply wanted to share this information because it provides a snapshot of our school districts’ fiscal situations and sheds some light on a topic of concern to many people. To see more of this data, visit http://www.oms.nysed.gov/faru/Profiles/profiles_cover.html.

William (Will) A. Barclay is the Republican representative of the 120th New York Assembly District, which encompasses most of Oswego County, including the cities of Oswego and Fulton, as well as the town of Lysander in Onondaga County and town of Ellisburg in Jefferson County. Contact him at barclaw@assembly.state.ny.us, or (315) 598-5185.