The trustees of the New York City Pension Funds approved a plan to create a common investment meeting, city Comptroller Scott Stringer said Dec. 3. The move, said Stringer, is designed to significantly streamline the operations of the five pension boards and the comptroller's asset management bureau.
The meeting will consolidate the 54 monthly investment meetings of the individual boards of the city's five pension funds into six meetings of all trustees per year, with meetings added if necessary. At these meetings, the trustees will meet in public session to review overall performance and the direction of common investments as recommended by the asset management bureau.
Following the public session, said Stringer, the trustees will hear presentations in executive session from investment managers and then meet as individual boards immediately thereafter to vote on the hiring and retention of managers and conduct other business.
The first common investment meeting will be Dec. 16 at New York Law School, 185 West Broadway in Manhattan. The public session will begin at 9 a.m. Public sessions will be livestreamed on the Internet.
"The common investment meeting will enable the New York City pension funds to be more effective and efficient guardians of the retirement security of over 715,000 members, retirees and their beneficiaries," Stringer said in a statement. "This new structure will allow all parties – from our investment team and investment consultants to our trustees – to focus on manager oversight and diligence while being more strategic, accountable and transparent in our operations."
The pension funds consist of the New York City Employees' Retirement System, Teachers' Retirement System, New York City Police Pension Fund, New York City Fire Department Pension Fund and the Board of Education Retirement System.
