IPFIUSA

But the governor’s move has spawned concerns that a green energy litmus test over investment decisions could end up limiting the fund’s growth should Cuomo’s prognostications regarding energy sector stocks prove to be flawed. “The comptroller needs to stick to his guns and understand that his fiduciary responsibility is to the beneficiaries” of the fund, said Christopher Burnham, the former Connecticut state treasurer who served as the sole trustee of the Nutmeg State’s pension fund from 1995 to 1997.

“You have to invest these monies cautiously, carefully and wisely, and without allowing a personal agenda to play a role in how you execute your duties,” said Burnham, a Republican and native New Yorker who is chairman of Cambridge Global Advisors in Virginia. DiNapoli and Cuomo are downstate Democrats, though at times the relationship between the two has been chilly. Since Cuomo advanced his pension proposal, the comptroller has avoided arguing with the governor over the issue, instead signaling that he welcomes the “opportunity to partner” with Cuomo via an advisory council aimed at “achieving investment returns.”

Why do public fiduciaries think they should impose their political agenda on other people’s retirement benefits? Is not the standard of care to manage public retirement funds with the highest return at the lowest reasonable risk? With more than 50 percent of all state pension funds significantly underfunded and at least five states, including my native Connecticut, facing immanent bankruptcy due to grossly unfunded state employee and teacher pension systems, why would both beneficiaries and taxpayers, who will be forced to makeup those liabilities, want to politicize the management of the money? As I will also be a beneficiary in a few years, please manage the money without a political agenda.

When I was elected state treasurer of Connecticut in 1994, I inherited the worst performing state pension system in America for the previous 10 years. Within the first six months we fired the vast majority of money managers and indexed 75 percent of the portfolio. Yet, I was attacked for holding tobacco stocks in the portfolio, by virtue of the fact that we owned an S&P 500 stock index fund. I refused to play politics with the pension, particularly after 10 years of politics had relegated pension fund performance to the gutter. Instead, we focused on the highest return at a reasonable risk, and performance skyrocketed from dead last to the top 25 percent in the country, overnight.