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Attempt to Expand FL Pension Board Voted Down
December 9, 2009 (PLANSPONSOR.com) – Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink's attempt to expand the board that oversees the state's pension fund was voted down by her two colleagues on the board.
The St. Petersburg Times reports that Attorney General
Bill McCollum, and Governor Charlie Crist voted against Sink’s proposal to
include on the board an expert in investments as well as a representative of
the more than one million beneficiaries. Sink had also proposed requiring fiduciary
training for the three State Board of Administration members, all members of
its audit committee, investment advisory council, and local-government advisory
council; and requiring regular independent audits, to include both financial
gains or losses and internal operations of the agency (see Sunshine State CFO Calls for Pension Board Revamping).
According to the news report, McCollum offered a more
modest set of oversight changes that included adding three members to a
six-member Investment Advisory Council and stricter requirements for annual
financial statements on the pension fund’s performance. Both officials’
proposals will be sent to the Legislature without recommendations.
Sink said the inadequacy of having only three elected
officials oversee the state’s pension fund was exposed in the 2007 pension fund
“crisis” that led to a temporary freeze on withdrawals from a local
government investment pool and resignation of the fund’s executive director. She
also pointed out that Florida is the only state that has its governor and
attorney general as voting trustees of its pension fund.