08/06/2025

SERS Remembers Former Board Chair Nick Maiale Who Led SERS Through Innovation and Growth

It is with great sadness we report the recent death of former SERS Board Chair and public pension trailblazer, Nicholas “Nick” J. Maiale. First appointed to the SERS Board in February 1985, Nick was appointed by Gov. Casey to chair the board in December 1992. Nick served as board chair for 22 years, after reappointment by Governors of both political parties. As mentioned in his obituary, “Nick prided himself on developing relationships with people across party lines.” During Nick’s chairmanship, the SERS Fund grew from approx. $5 billion to nearly $27 billion, and earned national recognition as one of the most innovative and best-performing public pension plans. Under his leadership, SERS was among the first major pension funds to commit to private investments, including private equity, venture capital, real estate, commodities, and hedge funds. Nick was a 1973 graduate of Penn State and a 1976 graduate of Temple Law School. Despite a 45-year battle with multiple sclerosis, Nick had a successful law practice in Philadelphia and was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for six terms from 1980 – 1992.

In addition to his career and SERS service, Nick served on the Board of the Delaware Valley Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Penn State Abington College Advisory Board. Nick endowed the Abington campus’s first fund for students with disabilities as well as scholarships and an internship fund. In 2024, Penn State Abington named a room in the Lares Building, the Nick Maiale Student Government and Leadership Room.

Employees at SERS remember Nick as a no-nonsense board chair who held presenters to strict time limits with his signature throat-clearing that sent a clear message to presenters that, “Your time is up!”

Nick was 73.

07/29/2025

PennSERS Board Maintains Current Investment Return Assumption
Adjusts Other Actuarial Assumptions Based on Five-Year Experience
Invests $1.5 Billion In Fixed Income

HARRISBURG – The Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement Board, meeting here today, maintained the pension system’s current investment return assumption and adjusted several other economic and demographic assumptions to better align with the system’s recent experience.

Learn more

07/21/2025
State Employees Report Increase in Unsolicited Offers to Discuss Their State Pension

The Office of Administration has notified us of an increase in employees receiving calls from individuals representing themselves as state pension advisors to discuss the employee’s state pension.

Some calls mention that an appointment for a “pension overview” has been scheduled for them and the caller has the employees’ work email address.

Keep the following in mind when you receive calls or emails regarding your pension:

• Appointments with SERS pension specialists are scheduled by you, and you only. We do not pre-schedule appointments.  

• SERS does not endorse any financial planner groups.

• SERS has not hired a vendor to call members regarding meetings nor have we shared any member information.

• If you participate in more than one SERS retirement plan – for instance you also have an investment account in the Defined Contribution Plan or the voluntary Deferred Compensation Plan – the third-party administrator of those plans is Empower. Empower is the only other entity that could contact you about your state retirement benefit.

For more information on how to identify imposters, see Consider the Source! Beware of Financial Advisors Posing as SERS in the fall/winter 2024 SERS News.