Wonder how much STRS Ohio lost in the last 12 months? Think we'll be told?

From John Curry, October 14, 2008

Calpers fund down 25 percent for year
Bloomberg News
10/13/2008

The largest public pension fund in the U.S. lost almost $67 billion in 12 months, more than 25 percent of its value, as stock markets tumbled.

The market value of the California Public Employees' Retirement System declined to $193.7 billion as of Oct. 9, from $260.6 billion a year earlier. Between Sept. 15, when Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy, and last week, the fund's stock holdings declined by $12.4 billion to $36.8 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Pensions and retirement accounts, which tend to be heavily invested in stocks, may have lost as much as $2 trillion since 2007, the Congressional Budget Office reported Oct. 7. In the 12 months through Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 40 percent, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, 42 percent.

Calpers reported that it lost 2.6 percent for the fiscal year ended June 30, its worst performance in six years. Retirement benefits promised to retired state workers in California are guaranteed and won't change when stock markets decline.

The pension fund has said it needs to earn an average of 7.75 percent in a so-called "smoothing policy" that allows it to spread its gains and losses out over 15 years as a way to ensure it doesn't have to ask state and local governments for more money to pay for guaranteed benefits. It earned an average of 10 percent during the five years ended Aug. 31 and 7.2 percent in the last three years.

"We're still applying gains from four years of double-digit returns," said Calpers spokeswoman Pat Macht. "Those will help offset employer rates for next year."

The California State Teachers' Retirement System, the second- biggest U.S. public pension fund after Calpers, lost 3.7 percent for the fiscal year, its worst one-year decline in a decade and the first loss since 2002. The teachers' fund saw the value of its stock portfolio decline 25 percent to $14.9 billion as of Oct. 10 from $20 billion on Sept. 15, according to Bloomberg data.