There is a surprising finding in a new issue brief released by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence: despite having a better track record of paying the annual required contribution, locally administered pension plans have not yet caught up with the funded levels of state-administered plans.

Why? State-administered plans have experienced higher investment returns over the years, according to the analysis in Locally Administered Pension Plans, 2007-2011. The research team at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found that local plans are catching up, narrowing the funding gap to just four percentage points in the last four years.

To learn more and view details of the 128 local pension plans studied, go to the Center for State and Local Government Excellence.