Kerry Wood

Last week, Connecticut transferred more than $1.3 billion to pay down its long-term pension debt. Since the legislature enacted the state’s “fiscal guardrails” in 2017, more than $7 billion in excess contributions captured from volatile revenue sources have been made to pay down pension debt, resulting in far-reaching savings for Connecticut taxpayers. 

Future generations will save more than $600 million per year over the next 25 years while supporting retirement benefits for teachers, state troopers, nurses, correction officers and more. While enormous progress has been made in addressing our long-term liabilities, more work remains. But what we have achieved is benefitting taxpayers today and long into the future.

About $1 billion will be directed to the State Employees Retirement System with another $273 million deposited in the Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS). The fiscal year 2023 budget surplus, projected to be more than $500 million, will also be directed to the TRS after a final accounting has been completed later this year.

In addition, the budgetary reforms enacted in 2017, and extended by the legislature this year, also require the state to deposit excess revenue from volatile sources such as the personal income tax and business entity tax into the state's "Rainy Day" reserve fund. A total of $2.5 million will be placed in that reserve, bringing the fund to its statutory cap.