Illinois' adjusted net pension liability will total $317 billion for the current year, according to Moody's Investors Service.
The total reflects the June 30 funding position of the state's five pension plans connected with the state's June 2021 financial reporting, a report issued Wednesday by Moody's said.
The revised liability total is based on the aggregate adjusted net pension liability of Illinois' five state pension funds as of June 30, which represented a 19% increase from the prior year. The increase was driven by the fall of the FTSE Pension Liability index to 2.7% as of June 30 from 3.51% a year earlier.
Moody's uses that high-grade corporate bond index to value state and local government pension liabilities.
As of June 30, the state's aggregate net pension liabilities reported under Government Accounting Standards Board rules totaled $154 billion, up from $145 billion a year earlier.
That number reflects a weighted average discount rate of 6.74%. Those numbers will appear in Illinois' audited financial statements for fiscal year 2021, Moody's said.
Moody's also notes that the near-term funding and cash-flow positions of the pension funds remain relatively unchanged for the period ending June 30, 2020.
As an example, the $57.6 billion Springfield-based Illinois Teachers' Retirement System's adjusted net pension liability jumped to $187 billion as of June 30 from $156 billion a year earlier, the report noted, but its non-investment cash flow relative to assets rose slightly to -2.3% from -2.5% the year before.
(NCIF is calculated by taking the contributions into a pension fund less benefits and expenses out, according to Moody's.)
Also, Illinois Teachers assets-to-benefits coverage ratio was 7.5 years as of June 30, compared to 7.6 years the year before.
In April 2020, Moody's downgraded Illinois' credit outlook to negative from stable after the pension funds experienced investment losses related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The state has a Baa3 rating with Moody's, its lowest investment-grade rating.
