R-17-087
RESOLUTION
SUPPORTING EFFORTS BY THE STATE LEGISLATURE TO REDUCE THE
DOWNSHIFTING OF COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH THE NEW HAMPSHIRE
RETIREMENT SYSTEM
CITY OF NASHUA
In the Year Two Thousand and Seventeen
WHEREAS, the City of Nashua employs a large number of municipal and schoo! district
employees;
WHEREAS, the City of Nashua has enrolled most of these employees in the the State of
New Hampshire Retirement System;
WHEREAS, the City of Nashua made the decision to enroll these employees in the State
Retirement system based on the promise of savings to the taxpayer due to the State of New
Hampshire’s contributions to the system and the promise of return on the investment of the trust
fund;
WHEREAS, the trust fund has been operated in such a way as to currently contain funds
accounting for less than 60% of the anticipated liabilities of the retirement system, as opposed to
the City’s Board of Public Works Retirement System, which is funded to above 85% of its
anticipated liabilities;
WHEREAS, the State of New Hampshire has recently established a “get well plan” to
restore the trust fund to fully cover the liabilities of the retirement system in a relatively short
period by assessing yearly costs on the City which are approximately three times what is needed
to maintain the plan were it fully or nearly fully funded;
WHEREAS, the downshifted expenses now account for an additional 15 million dollars
in expense to the taxpayers of Nashua over and above what our proportional share was 9 years
ago;
WHEREAS, the Board of Aldermen of the City of Nashua holds that it is fundamentally
unfair, and unnecessarily burdensome to demand that the current residents of Nashua pay
simultaneously the retirement costs of the past, the present, and the future due to the State’s
handling of the trust fund; and
