Month: September 2023

PERA Board Selects Firm to Conduct Executive Director Search

Posted on by planeteria

The PERA Board is making progress in its search for PERA’s next Executive Director. It formed an ad hoc executive search committee to oversee the process. The committee selected Hudepohl & Associates, a Florida-based firm with expertise in executive searches for public pension plans like PERA, to conduct a nationwide search.

The former Executive Director’s position has been vacant since June 1. Chief Investment Officer/Chief Operating Officer Amy C. McGarrity is serving as Interim Executive Director.

On Tuesday, the committee met to discuss its search timeline and objectives. The committee expects to meet again in early-to-mid October, and the entire process is expected to take several months to complete.

Taylor McLemore, chair of the ad hoc committee, said the committee will consider a wide variety of candidates, both internal and external, to find PERA’s next leader.

“Our mandate is to find the best person for the job,” McLemore said. “This is a significant organization that’s critical to our members, to our employees, and to this state, so we need to find the person who is going to take PERA forward on its mission and make it successful for all of our members and the employees they’re leading.”

Meetings of the ad hoc committee are open to the public and are streamed live on copera.org. PERA members and others are invited to listen in to those meetings, and each includes time for public comment.

For more information, visit copera.org.

How PERA Prioritizes Financial Value Over Personal or Political Values

Posted on by planeteria

At Colorado PERA, we invest for one purpose: To provide retirement benefits to PERA members for generations to come.

It’s not just our mission, it’s our passion. And it’s the reason we prioritize financial value—not personal or political values—in our investment decisions.

Fiduciary duty

PERA serves nearly 700,000 current and former public employees who have worked hard to make our Colorado communities better places to live. Each of those members counts on PERA to provide a retirement benefit they cannot outlive.

The PERA Board and staff have a fiduciary duty to those members. That means we’re required by law to act solely in the interest of members and benefit recipients, and we must manage the trust funds only for their financial benefit. We make every investment decision with that duty in mind.

Each PERA member is unique, with their own personal values that guide them. It would be impossible to invest based on personal or political values of our individual members or stakeholders. Our fiduciary duty demands that we do what’s right for the membership as a whole, and that means focusing on financial value.

Prioritizing financial value

Our sole investment goal is to pursue the best risk-adjusted returns for our members. That means when we’re researching a possible investment opportunity or assessing an asset we already hold, our focus is on that investment’s ability to earn money over the long term.

We sometimes hear from stakeholders and others who want us to invest in some segments of the market or divest—sell our investments—from others based on their individual preferences or political beliefs.

That would be contrary to our mission and our fiduciary duty. Our approach involves finding companies, properties and investment funds that we believe will be competitive over time, allowing them to be profitable and generate returns to the portfolio.

Investing based on the financial interest of the whole PERA membership is our fiduciary duty, and we take it seriously because our hard-working members depend on us for their financial future.

Learn more about Investment Stewardship:

Recap of PERA Board’s September Planning Session, Meeting

Posted on by planeteria

The Colorado PERA Board of Trustees convened for three days in Colorado Springs for its annual September planning session. The planning session concluded with the Board meeting on Friday, Sept. 22.

Over the course of the three days, Trustees engaged in a number of discussions, education sessions, and planning meetings. Below is a summary of some of the highlights and important actions the Board took.

Executive Director search

The Board committee tasked with overseeing the search for PERA’s next Executive Director announced to the full Board that it has selected an outside firm to assist in that search. Hudepohl & Associates, a firm with experience in executive searches for public pension plans, will conduct a nationwide search over the coming months.

READ MORE: PERA Board Selects Firm to Conduct Executive Director Search

CEM Benchmarking Report

Each year, CEM Benchmarking releases a report comparing PERA to other public pension plans on factors such as plan administration costs and the quality of services provided to members. The most recent report, which CEM presented at the planning session, shows PERA continues to provide a high level of service at low cost to its members relative to its peers.

According to CEM, PERA’s administrative cost was $55 per member in 2022, below the peer average of $63. PERA’s service score of 83 was the 10th highest of the 61 pension systems around the world that were included in the report. Among its peers of similarly sized U.S. plans, PERA ranked fourth.

Notably, the report showed that most plans are seeing an increase in wait times and call lengths on their customer service phone lines in recent years, and PERA is no exception. Staff have been taking steps to improve service levels, including upgrading phone systems and better forecasting staffing needs to meet members’ expectations.

Asset/liability study

An important action the Board undertakes every few years is conducting what’s called an asset/liability study. The last study was completed in 2019.

The asset/liability study is what ultimately informs PERA’s strategic asset allocation — or the mix of stocks, bonds, and other investments that make up PERA’s portfolio.

Over the next several months, PERA’s investment consultants will work with staff and the Board to discuss PERA’s long-term investment goals, risk tolerance, expectations of future performance and other factors to determine if PERA should adjust its asset allocation . A notable change that resulted from the last study was allocating slightly more of the portfolio to global equity.

The Board will discuss the asset/liability study further at its November meeting, with the possibility of finalizing the study as soon as next spring.

The Board will hold its final meeting of 2023 on Nov. 17.