The state makes large annual payments to a CalSTRS supplemental fund with a reserve that more than doubled in the past six years to $11.5 billion, while the fund’s annual payments to retirees dropped from $348 million to $193 million.
State payments required by law — $582 million last fiscal year and $607 million this fiscal year — continue to flow into the huge inflation-protection fund that keeps teacher pensions from falling below 85 percent of their original purchasing power.
Supplemental Benefit Maintenance Account payments have remained relatively stable for 25 years (see chart below): $169 million to 52,199 retirees in fiscal 1990, peaking at $348 million to 89,412 in 2008, and dropping to $193 million to 52,474 last year.
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