Teachers Retire Fund Reports Flat Growth

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The Illinois teacher’s Retirement System is reporting flat growth during the past year.

The report released Thursday shows the system, that covers downstate and suburban school districts, only grew by about three-quarters of one percent.  That’s its worst performance since the recession of 2008 and 2009.  Retirement system spokesman Dave Urbanek says year to year swings are expected:

"We did not do handsprings over the fact that last year we had a 23.6 percent rate of return on our investments. And we're not crying over the fact that this year the rate of return was only 0.76 percent."

Still the 0.76 % return is significantly less than TRS’ projected 8-percent growth outlook. The system recently lowered its long-term outlook from 8.5 percent.