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Utah

Overview

The Utah Retirement Systems is the sole state retirement system in Utah, administering retirement benefits for all employees of the state, public school teachers, and employees of political subdivisions that have elected to participate. The URS board administers eight defined benefit plans and four defined contribution plans.

Plan Design

Most employees hired into the URS since 7/1/11 participate in a hybrid plan that is unique in the public sector: the plan is non-contributory for employees as long as the plan’s cost is below 10 percent of employee pay (14 percent of pay for public safety workers). When the cost of the plan exceeds 10 percent (14 percent), employees are required to contribute the cost above 10 (14) percent.
 

According to the US Government Accountability Office, 94 percent of employees of state and local government in Utah participate in Social Security.

Access plan design detail

Authorizing Statutes and Board Structure

Utah Code 49-11-202 establishes the Utah Retirement Systems Board, which is made up of eight members and is responsible for managing the system’s assets.

Details regarding the composition of these and other retirement boards is accessible via the Retirement and Investment Board Characteristics search tool located at the bottom of this page.

Fiduciary Duty/Prudence Standard

The Utah Prudent Investor Act describes the board’s investment standard of care, as follows:
The fund shall be invested in accordance with the prudent investor rule established in Title 75, Chapter 7, Part 9, Utah Uniform Prudent Investor Act. 75-7-901. Prudent investor rule. (1) Except as otherwise provided in Subsection (2), a trustee who invests and manages trust assets owes a duty to the beneficiaries of the trust to comply with the prudent investor rule set forth in this chapter. If a trustee is named on the basis of a trustee's representations of special skills or expertise, the trustee has a duty to use those special skills or expertise. (2) The prudent investor rule is a default rule and may be expanded, restricted, eliminated, or otherwise altered by the provisions of a trust. A trustee is not liable to a beneficiary to the extent that the trustee acted in reasonable reliance on the provisions of the trust.

Legal Protections of Retirement Benefits

No explicit constitutional protection for public pension benefits, but courts provide protection based on impairment of contract principles. Johnson v. Utah State Retirement Bd., 770 P.2d 93 (Utah 1988) (recognizing that vested rights cannot be impaired); Newcomb v. Ogden City Pub. School Teachers' Retirement Comm'n, 243 P.2d 941, 948 (1952)("Legislature may not provide for the termination of a retirement system unless a substantial substitute is provided."). (UT CONST., Article 1, §18) Source: Robert Klausner, Esq., State Constitutional Protections for Public Sector Retirement Benefits

See also the following search tools:

Retirement System Account Interest Policies Economic Actuarial Assumptions Retirement and Investment Board Characteristics
Information about interest rates applied to account balances of inactive plan participants Assumed rates of investment return and inflation Composition and characteristics of public retirement and investment oversight boards
Mortality Assumptions Plan Design Features Post-retirement Employment Policies
Public retirement system actuarial assumptions for mortality Numerous elements of retirement plan design Policies governing return-to-work for retirement system annuitants

More Data

Flag of Utah (December 21, 1913)[6]

Population (2025) 3,538,904

Utah public pension statistics, per U.S. Census Bureau as of FY 2025

Assets

$48.5 billion

Active Members

102,466

Annuitants

82,715

Benefits Paid

$2.4 billion

Employee Contributions

$67.0 million

Employer Contributions

$1.7 billion

Systems

One state retirement system accounting for 99 percent of both assets and public pension plan participants in the state. Two local retirement systems administer benefits for utility and transit workers, respectively.

Other Resources


Become A Member

Becoming a member of NASRA offers a unique opportunity to join a community committed to the sound, efficient, and innovative stewardship of public retirement systems. Membership connects you with a network of professionals and experts, providing valuable insights into managing public retirement systems with a focus on sustainability and risk-averse strategies.

By joining NASRA, you gain the tools and resources to enhance the management of public retirement systems, ensuring their long-term success and reliability for generations to come.

What's New at NASRA: Government Spending Issue Brief

NASRA’s March 2026 update on government spending makes a basic but important point: public pension benefits are not paid out of a government’s day-to-day operating budget. They are paid from trust funds that employees and employers contribute to during an employee’s working years. Those trusts distribute more than $400 billion each year to retirees and beneficiaries in communities across the country. On a national basis, employer contributions to pension trusts in FY 2023 equaled 5.16 percent of direct general spending by state and local governments, which shows that pension contributions remain a limited share of overall public spending even though the level varies from one state to another. 
The brief also shows that pension costs should be viewed in the context of the changes governments have made over the past 15 years to strengthen plan funding. Following the 2008–09 market decline, nearly every state and many local governments adjusted contributions, benefits, or both to improve pension sustainability. More recent data show that employer contributions increased from FY 2022 to FY 2023, but pension spending as a share of total government spending remained broadly stable. The updated brief provides FY 2023 figures and also projects the aggregate pension spending rate for FY 2024, offering a useful snapshot of both current costs and the longer funding trend.