# Iowa Public Pensions Scandal **URL:** \ **Category:** Pension/Retirement\ **Created:** [May 10, 2026, 12:23am UTC](https://community.goactuary.com/t/iowa-public-pensions-scandal/12736 "2026-05-10T00:23:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![The\_Polymath](https://community.goactuary.com/user_avatar/community.goactuary.com/the_polymath/32/83081_2.png) [@The\_Polymath](https://community.goactuary.com/u/The_Polymath)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2026, 12:23am UTC](https://community.goactuary.com/t/iowa-public-pensions-scandal/12736/1 "2026-05-10T00:23:09Z")
This scandal is in its early stages. They effectively tried to cook the books in order to make their funding metrics look better. > The $47bn Iowa public pension fund has been plunged into a governance crisis, with its chief executive resigning, its chief benefits officer terminated and a former risk officer claiming top officials misled the investment board. Greg Samorajski, chief executive of the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System, resigned effective May 1, while Steven Herbert, its chief benefits officer, was fired effective on Thursday after both had been placed on administrative leave during investigations into unspecified misconduct allegations. A former risk officer, Rich Wiggins, alleged in a lawsuit that Samorajski and chief investment officer Sriram Lakshminarayanan used misleading benchmarks and risk measures to make the fund appear to be performing better than it was. ![Screenshot_20260509_211816_Samsung Browser](https://community.goactuary.com/uploads/default/original/3X/4/c/4c74d81f4fbf82caade97c53d488256077b96877.jpeg) [https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/b8654d11-1f43-4f99-9305-7385d9480939](https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/b8654d11-1f43-4f99-9305-7385d9480939) ---
**Author:** ![tommie.frazier](https://community.goactuary.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/b5a626/32.png) [@tommie.frazier](https://community.goactuary.com/u/tommie.frazier)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2026, 1:08am UTC](https://community.goactuary.com/t/iowa-public-pensions-scandal/12736/2 "2026-05-10T01:08:02Z")
@meep Is this on your list of worst public pensions? ---
**Author:** ![DeepPurple](https://community.goactuary.com/user_avatar/community.goactuary.com/deeppurple/32/1551_2.png) [@DeepPurple](https://community.goactuary.com/u/DeepPurple)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 3:10pm UTC](https://community.goactuary.com/t/iowa-public-pensions-scandal/12736/3 "2026-05-11T15:10:22Z")
Pish Posh. Illinois could only HOPE to have a pension fund that was within $47B of target. From wikipedia: ![image](https://community.goactuary.com/uploads/default/original/3X/b/7/b7c47b0222f7301412fa9427d1a057db2ebd072f.png) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Polymath](https://community.goactuary.com/user_avatar/community.goactuary.com/the_polymath/32/83081_2.png) [@The\_Polymath](https://community.goactuary.com/u/The_Polymath)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 3:17pm UTC](https://community.goactuary.com/t/iowa-public-pensions-scandal/12736/4 "2026-05-11T15:17:05Z")
In that case…the good old local taxpayers in Illinois are on the hook for the difference. Say hello to higher local taxes to plug in that funding chasm. ---
**Author:** ![meep](https://community.goactuary.com/user_avatar/community.goactuary.com/meep/32/44_2.png) [@meep](https://community.goactuary.com/u/meep)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 5:52pm UTC](https://community.goactuary.com/t/iowa-public-pensions-scandal/12736/5 "2026-05-11T17:52:26Z")
It’s unlikely to be worse than Chicago pensions, but let me go look…. Okay, I had IPERS show up once in STUMP on its own over the years, but not for performance or anything, just referenced in one of my may 80% funding myth posts (not going to link, because it’s not relevant). I’m going to check where it falls in my allocation to alts listing: > **[Alternative Assets in Public Pensions: December 2025 Update](https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/alternative-assets-in-public-pensions-2f5)** > > It's been a bit ---
**Author:** ![DeepPurple](https://community.goactuary.com/user_avatar/community.goactuary.com/deeppurple/32/1551_2.png) [@DeepPurple](https://community.goactuary.com/u/DeepPurple)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 8:33pm UTC](https://community.goactuary.com/t/iowa-public-pensions-scandal/12736/6 "2026-05-11T20:33:47Z")
> [@The\_Polymath](#): > > Say hello to higher local taxes to plug in that funding chasm. It’s more like… Say hello to a moving company as I take myself and my deferred tax retirement accounts to a more fiscally responsible state and let Illinois fail miserably without me and my wallet. ---
**Author:** ![meep](https://community.goactuary.com/user_avatar/community.goactuary.com/meep/32/44_2.png) [@meep](https://community.goactuary.com/u/meep)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2026, 11:08am UTC](https://community.goactuary.com/t/iowa-public-pensions-scandal/12736/7 "2026-05-12T11:08:35Z")
So, I did a post: > **[Iowa Public Pension CEO Out: Goosed the Figures for Personal Gain, Perhaps?](https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/iowa-public-pension-ceo-out-goosed)** > > A lawsuit is ongoing against the state of Iowa, and a whiff of PSERS ... perhaps other pensions should consider their governance? There was a reference to PSERS, which we do have a thread on here: > [@PSERS faulty calculation](https://community.goactuary.com/t/psers-faulty-calculation/3032): > > I haven’t been bringing over my “pension watch” threads, but this particular controversy seems like it deserves something. After Pennsylvania’s biggest pension plan botched a crucial financial calculation, [the FBI launched an investigation](https://www.inquirer.com/business/psers-pension-fbi-pa-probe-subpoenas-20210516.html), the fund’s board began its own probe, and [100,000 public school employees](https://www.inquirer.com/business/psers-aft-psea-teachers-union-board-resign-wolf-20210525.html) suddenly faced paying more into the retirement system. Now The Inquirer and Spotlight PA have obtained new internal fund documents that shed light on that consequential mistake. Th… and yes, I used my links here to remind me a bit As far as I can tell, there’s nothing particularly special about IPERS, other than they may have screwed up in getting someone who is an outsider to the public pensions sphere to come in as a risk officer (whupsie, won’t play along!) … as opposed to the shit show that happened with Calpers management (hmmmm). And I can remind people what happened there, if you’d like. Many public pensions are hiding the fees they are paying to public equity, etc. I haven’t done a deep dive on the IPERS allocation to alternatives, and perhaps they’re leveraged more than I can see, but they’re only a little higher than the median allocation as far as I can tell. That doesn’t mean it’s great… it’s that a bunch of public pension plans have greatly increased their allocations to alts post-GFC to chase yield, and it’s only been going up up up. The specifics where the CEO & other top brass of IPERS may have been goosing the numbers to hit targets (and a dumbass metric that was a glorified tracking error) may have been their particular downfall, but hiding private equity/asset management fees on the alts is par for the course for many of the public pension funds. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Polymath](https://community.goactuary.com/user_avatar/community.goactuary.com/the_polymath/32/83081_2.png) [@The\_Polymath](https://community.goactuary.com/u/The_Polymath)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2026, 5:32am UTC](https://community.goactuary.com/t/iowa-public-pensions-scandal/12736/8 "2026-07-10T05:32:12Z")
About those Chicago pensions…broke doesn’t even begin to describe them. > The remarks by Mendoza, currently Illinois’ top finance official, came as Chicago’s four city employee pension funds reported an aggregate funded ratio of 28.1 per cent last year, compared with a national average of 82.5 per cent, leaving the city’s retirement system among the worst funded in the US. ![Screenshot_20260710_062909_Samsung Browser](https://community.goactuary.com/uploads/default/original/3X/6/a/6afe64bb8467672e1da54020a8e3014c92611742.jpeg) [https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/c8c75434-5ee5-47e2-afff-638b868f739e](https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/c8c75434-5ee5-47e2-afff-638b868f739e) ---
**Author:** ![DeepPurple](https://community.goactuary.com/user_avatar/community.goactuary.com/deeppurple/32/1551_2.png) [@DeepPurple](https://community.goactuary.com/u/DeepPurple)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2026, 8:22pm UTC](https://community.goactuary.com/t/iowa-public-pensions-scandal/12736/9 "2026-07-10T20:22:05Z")
As a P&C guy, I am not on top of the regulations for pension program insolvencies. In P&C, usually in the case of an insolvency, there is a tax against the state’s ongoing insurers to fund the insolvent company’s liabilities. Ultimately, the money comes from consumers, not a government (even if it is the state acting to collect the cash and distribute the monies) What happens if/WHEN the Chicago pension fund has checks to write and no cash? State steps in? Fed steps in? Where does the money come from? ---
**Author:** ![meep](https://community.goactuary.com/user_avatar/community.goactuary.com/meep/32/44_2.png) [@meep](https://community.goactuary.com/u/meep)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2026, 1:07pm UTC](https://community.goactuary.com/t/iowa-public-pensions-scandal/12736/10 "2026-07-29T13:07:51Z")
Taxpayers. I mean, many public pensions used to be pay-as-they-go… before they realized that’s not a great way to do it. I have some old books … ![image](https://community.goactuary.com/uploads/default/original/3X/3/7/370a9a06cc3de3faba24479fb476b69028d0e3b2.jpeg) ![image](https://community.goactuary.com/uploads/default/original/3X/3/1/3161ee8de0ed718f4fc84cb97f03e4db78d591a1.jpeg)