NCPERS Announces NextGen Competition Winner

The National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems announced on Wednesday the results of its inaugural NCPERS-Harris Pension Lab: NextGen Competition.

On Monday, two teams of graduate students from the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy presented solutions to improve the quality and sustainability of public pensions. The event was held as part of the NCPERS Public Pension Funding Forum, an annual conference held at the university’s David Rubenstein Forum.

Students were judged by three Illinois-based industry experts: Tim Blair, executive director of the State Retirement Systems of Illinois; Tiffany Junkins, executive director of the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago; and Kevin Reichart, the executive director of the Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago.

The winning team of Hassan Ul Haq and Melodie Slaughter presented a proposal developed with fellow students Lijie Shen and Jack Honig.

The team proposed selling 3,000 of the more than 20,000 vacant lots owned by Chicago, according to an NCPERS spokesperson. The community-centered approach expected returning the properties to private owners would generate $29 million—$45 million in property tax over 10 years, while reducing maintenance costs for the city and reversing neighborhood blight in historically disinvested areas. Revenue from the sales and the incremental tax dollars generated would be added to the city’s pension funds.

The proposal included recommendations to bundle lots for local organizations and linking sales to infrastructure improvements, creating a model that would simultaneously strengthen communities, reduce crime and provide dedicated revenue streams for pension obligations.

“The idea was to get the vacant lots sold so that [would] actually [be] on the property tax rolls—which is the main source of funding for the major pension funds in the city,” says Reichert, of the police fund. “They [were] not reinventing the wheel; they [were] just expanding the tax base … for the mechanism that already exists to fund the pension system. I thought that was great.”

Ul Haq and Slaughter’s prize is a shared $5,000 honorarium and research internships with NCPERS, culminating in a published paper.

The runner-up, Lianxia Chi, presented a proposal developed along with Tarini Dewan, Liwen Gu and Theresa Tuyangzhen Li.

The proposal suggested implementing weekday rush-hour tolling on Chicago’s North Lake Shore Drive, intended to generate $2.2 million—$2.3 million annually, while reducing travel times during peak hours, the NCPERS spokesperson said. The voluntary managed lane system would preserve equity by maintaining free lanes and be priced at $0.30 per mile to encourage broader adoption beyond just high-income drivers.

“With transparent reinvestment in transit improvements and constitutional dedication of revenues to transportation purposes—including covering pension costs for city transportation employees—their approach offer[ed] a sustainable model for mobility and fiscal stability,” the spokesperson stated.

“The [tolling] proposal spoke to me because … I know exactly the stretch that they are talking about,” says Reichert. “I didn’t think there would be too much [to change to implement the proposal]. I thought that was doable.”

According to Reichert, the judges’ selection of the vacant lot proposal as the winner was not unanimous.

“That speaks to how close [the competition] was,” Reichert says. “It spoke to how well both of the teams did and how well both of the proposals were [executed].”

PLANSPONSOR asked the State Retirement System of Illinois’ Blair what tipped the scale for him to choose the proposal he preferred.

“My approach was the ease of implementation and practicality,” says Blair. “Politically and [administratively], which [proposal] would be easier to implement? And if the outcome wasn’t as estimated, [which would have] the easier exit strategy?”

The judges emphasized how well both teams did, regardless of which team won.

“I cannot express enough that I think both teams did a tremendous job,” says Blair.

“Both projects were very well-researched and data-driven, so I was very impressed by that standpoint of both proposals,” says Reichert.

Junkins, from the municipal fund, shared additional thoughts about the conference.

“You never know when one of these [proposals] may land, or a variation may land,” says Junkins. “A program like this certainly can go a long way with the trajectory of the city of Chicago.”