NC pension trustees meet Oct. 30, 2025. Left to right, Sam Watts, NC Retirement Systems executive director, State Treasurer Brad Briner, staff member Timothy Melton, trustee Pat Hurley Thornburg. (Photo: Lynn Bonner/NC Newsline)
Pat Hurley Thornburg, a former state legislator from Randolph County, wants state government retirees to get cost-of-living adjustments, often called COLAs.
As a member of the boards that make recommendations on state and local government pensions, she’s in a position to push for them.
Thornburg came to the trustees meeting Thursday prepared with a chart showing that retired state employees and teachers received COLAs nearly every year from 1981 to 2008. From 2009 on, they’ve received small increases, one-time bonuses, or nothing at all.
“I don’t understand why it happens,” she said. “It really bothers me.”
Retirees have lost purchasing power to rising inflation, she said.
The state pension trustees could be in a position to recommend that the legislature grant state retiree cost-of-living increases in the next budget. It all depends on how pension fund returns perform through December.
Before 2008, it was easy for the pension fund to reach its earnings targets. That allowed the financial breathing room to increase pension checks for retired state government employees and teachers.
That changed with the 2008 financial crisis.
“We were in a very different economic environment,” said Sam Watts, executive director of the NC Retirement Systems.
For years, North Carolina’s pension returns ranked at or near the bottom compared to other states’ pensions. But earnings have improved since January, with investment returns hitting 10.8% through Sept. 30. That’s close to the average performance of other large public pension plans.
The state and local pension funds have separate trustee boards, but the boards meet at the same time and some members serve on both boards.
The state pension board tells the legislature whether there’s enough money to finance cost-of-living adjustments from the fund for state retirees and teachers. It makes the recommendation, but legislators don’t have to accept it.
The local government pension board makes decisions on COLAs for those retirees.
Trustees must balance a number of factors in determining whether the respective funds can afford to pay COLAs, including investment returns, liabilities, and salary increases for people still working.
The boards will make those decisions in January.
State Treasurer Brad Briner says as it looks now, it’s more likely that the state pension trustees will be able to recommend the legislature include COLAs in the next state budget than it is for local pension trustees to give local government retirees cost-of-living increases.
Neither the state retiree pension plan nor the local government retiree plan are what’s called “fully funded,” meaning that they have enough to pay current beneficiaries as well as meet future obligations to people still working who will qualify for pensions. But the local government plan is a few points further from the mark than the state retiree plan.
Tim O’Connell, whose Retired Government Employee Association represents both state and local retirees, reminded trustees that local government retirees have gone nearly 20 years without COLAs.
“It’s been a tough 15, 20 years,” he said.
“Everything you can do in this room, please do it for the retirees,” he said. “We’re working for the future as well, but the current retirees really bear the burden of some tough times.”
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