The Plymouth County Retirement Association shared its biannual report of assets and liabilities, which shows that it is about 68% funded with an unfunded actuarial liability of $685 million. The PCRA has until 2040 to reach full funding, and member communities disagree on how aggressive its funding schedule should be as double-digit yearly increases in required contributions squeeze town budgets.
The PCRA’s actuary, Linda Bournival, offered several potential new funding schedules based on her new analysis of the association’s outstanding liabilities and the strength of its investments in the past two years, but the association’s board has yet to vote on which schedule to adopt. More aggressive schedules demand more money from member municipalities earlier, saving the towns money in the long term but taking large portions of their yearly budgets.
The association’s chair, Plymouth County Treasurer Thomas O’Brien, said that some towns would prefer a more aggressive schedule, and some complain that doing so would “break the budget.”
The PCRA provides retirement plans to the employees of 23 towns, including Hanover, Norwell, Scituate, Duxbury and Kingston. In fiscal year 2027, it requires payments of $6.5 million from Hanover, $5 million from Scituate and $4.6 million from Norwell.
The association’s board has not scheduled a vote to adopt a new funding schedule. The potential schedules would have the system fully funded between 2031 and 2033.
The report also outlined the performance of the PCRA’s investments and how demographic changes have affected its funding percentage.
In 2025, PCRA’s investment consultant assumed that the association's investments would return 7.876%. The actual return was 12.61%, and O’Brien said that their investments consistently outperform projections.
But Bournival’s presentation shared that “strong investment periods did not produce sustained funded gains”: the PCRA is only 68.2% funded today according to current actuarial assumptions, despite being 67.5% funded two years ago.
Bournival said that that is partly because of demographic change. The association saw more salary increases, hires and rehires in its member towns than anticipated, and fewer terminations, resulting in a loss of $114.4 million for the system.
The Board’s next meeting is July 21 at 9 a.m. at 60 Industrial Park Road.
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