Retiree Information
The City of Chester faces a severe pension and retiree health care funding crisis.
The City’s unfunded pension and retiree health care liabilities are among the most distressed of any city in Pennsylvania. As of December 31st, 2021, the police pension plan only had approximately $3.4 million in non-DROP assets, equivalent to only six to seven months of pension checks.
As of the last valuation of the police pension plan in 2019, to be fully funded, the police pension plan needed to have $96.6 million in assets.
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In October 2020, the counsel for the Receiver for the City of Chester discovered that the City has been incorrectly calculating pension benefits for police officers hired after January 1, 1988, and prior to February 1, 2017, who retired on a normal pension. Specifically, the City was using the incorrect final salary formula of the last twelve (12) months of the retiree’s earnings. The correct formula that should have been used is the average earnings of the retiree’s last three (3) years of the retiree’s earnings. On October 25, 2021, the Receiver ordered the City’s Pension Board to use the correct formula.
Impacted former police officers are in the process of being notified as to the corrected pension formula.
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For more information, visit the Chester Retiree Committee website here.