The Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund (CTPF) Board of Trustees voted
to take a position against
HR 6290, the Public Employee Pension Transparency Act
(PEPTA), recently reintroduced by Congressman Devin Nunes (R-CA)
and cosponsored by Ken Calvert (R-CA), Chris Stewart (R-UT), and
Tom McClintock (R-CA).

This legislation would impose inappropriate, costly, and
burdensome unfunded federal mandates on sovereign States and
local governments, and would additionally threaten the tax-exempt
status of municipal bonds, which are often used to support
critical infrastructure construction and repairs (including for
education and transportation). Congressman Nunes has introduced
multiple versions of this bill since 2010.

CTPF Executive Director Charles A. Burbridge recently ,
asking them to not cosponsor this legislation and urging them to
oppose attempts to include any provisions of this bill in other
legislation.

PEPTA does not save taxpayer dollars, protect employee pension
benefits, improve state and local retirement system funding, or
provide decision-useful information to policymakers. Rather, it
creates an expensive, federal bureaucracy and imposes unnecessary
and unwarranted federal red tape on state and local government
operations that will only serve to divert taxpayer resources from
other priorities.

CTPF joins many other public pension systems in the National
Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems (NCPERS) who have taken action to
stop HR 6290 and oppose this legislation. We will continue to
update our members on the status of this bill as new information
becomes available.