When State Senator Katie Muth joined the board of the Pennsylvania teachers’ pension fund last year, she knew she had a lot to learn: With a college degree in athletic training, her financial education consisted largely of paying off her student loans. But she saw the unpaid trustee position at the $75 billion Public School Employees’ Retirement System as a way to protect teachers and state taxpayers — and an extension of her job as a lawmaker.

Little did the 38-year-old know she was about to get a crash course in high finance and sharp-elbowed pension politics. Or that she would be forced to sue her own fund to get access to internal documents.

The Pennsylvania teachers’ fund is a microcosm of the problems at many public pension plans — and why some retirement experts believe more bad news could be coming as markets continue their gyrations and pension plans try to amplify declining returns with riskier investments. The $5 trillion mountain of money in public pension coffers has enriched many a Wall Street firm. Yet millions of retired school teachers, firefighters and other civil servants must get by on modest monthly checks that critics say are made even smaller by some asset managers’ hefty fees.

It was at Muth’s first board meeting in March 2021 when the pension system’s executive director revealed in a memo that the fund had erred in reporting its average investment returns over several years. The mistake, for which a consulting firm has accepted blame, turned out to be a small yet politically explosive overstatement. It meant nearly 100,000 educators would have to contribute up to several hundred dollars more into the fund annually.

Read more @Yahoo News