The Case for New Pension Accounting Standards.

• Date: 01 August 2019

Public pension accounting methodologies devised by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) produce flawed results and are in urgent need of improvement, according to an independent study released by the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems (NCPERS).

"When things go awry for some pension plans, it is often not because the accounting rules are ignored but because they are followed," the study's author, Brown University researcher Tom Sgouros, wrote in "The Case for New Pension Accounting Standards."

GASB rules can mislead decision makers' views as to the health of a pension system, prompting poor decisions, the study found. The study recommended developing different rules that will address some of these...