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HOLLIDAYSBURG -- The board that manages the county's pension fund agreed Wednesday to tweak its investment allocations because interest rates have gone up.
The decision means that Marquette Associates, the company that manages the county's $33.6 million pension fund, will aim to keep 24% of the fund's assets in fixed income options, instead of its former 21% target.
Conversely, the Blair County Retirement Board also agreed to reduce targets for investments in U.S. equities to 38% of the fund's assets and investments in non-U.S. equities to 19%.
Retirement Board Chairman Bruce Erb said the changes make sense in light of higher interest rates generating more income with less risk.
Pat Wing, managing partner at Marquette Associates, attended Wednesday's meeting at the courthouse and offered a graphic to the board showing fixed-income yields climbing to 4.25% in March.
"We haven't seen that level in 15 years," Wing said.
Marquette Vice President Brad Hampton also reviewed the fund's first-quarter performance, showing the county's pension fund up by $1.34 million to $33.5 million, a 4.1% net return.
The report also showed the fund remains down from its market value of $36.9 million reported a year ago but up from its $28.46 million reported three years ago.
In October, an annual review of the county's pension fund by CBIZ Retirement Plan Services calculated the plan's underfunding at $65.07 million, based on amounts owed to current and future retirees at $104.06 million. That same report also showed solvency for the next 30 years.
A similar report issued in 2015 identified 2024 as the year of insolvency, when the fund wouldn't have enough money to cover its liabilities, prompting commissioners to make higher general fund contributions to the plan.
For 2023, the general fund is providing $5.25 million toward the fund.
Also during the retirement board meeting, Controller A.C. Stickel spoke of progress in computerizing employee pension records that have been maintained on index cards. The use of the PTG Pension Software is expected to generate more detailed information that the county hasn't been able to provide in the past, Stickel said.
Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456.