Retiree Information

The City of Chester faces a severe pension and retiree health care funding crisis.  The City’s unfunded pension and retiree health care liabilities are among the most distressed of any city in Pennsylvania.  As of December 31st, 2021, the police pension plan only had approximately $3.4 million in non-DROP assets which is the equivalent of only six to seven months of pension checks.  As of the last valuation of the police pension plan in 2019, to be fully funded, the police pension plan needed to have $96.6 million in assets. 

Retire Information Session; 11/09/2022

We will be hosting an in-person meeting for retirees at Chester City Hall in the Community Room on November 9th from 5:30-7:30pm. A presentation will be given about the City’s current financial situation and we will discuss possible changes to retiree health care and pensions as well as answer questions.

The meeting will also be streamed virtually through our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/ChesterReceivership, if you are unable to attend in person. We hope to see you, either in person or virtually, on November 9th.  We hope that you can participate either in-person or virtually.

Police Pension Recalculation

In October 2020, the counsel for the Receiver for the City of Chester discovered that the City has been incorrectly calculating pension benefits for police officers hired after January 1, 1988, and prior to February 1, 2017, who retired on a normal pension.  Specifically, the City was using the incorrect final salary formula of the last twelve (12) months of the retiree’s earnings.  The correct formula that should have been used is the average earnings of the retiree’s last three (3) years of the retiree’s earnings.  On October 25, 2021, the Receiver ordered the City’s Pension Board to use the correct formula.

Impacted former police officers are in the process of being notified as to the corrected pension formula. 

Retiree Information Session

The Receiver’s team held a virtual information session on February 15, 2022, from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm for Chester City retirees and beneficiaries. A copy of the Receiver’s Retiree Information Session presentation is located here and under “Documents” below. c