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Highlands Today

Pension Funds

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Gabriel Read

Published: December 22, 2007

I have missed a number of commission sessions, but I do read the papers and watch television for news of local and state issues. One of them is the issue of state officials using pension funds for questionable investments.

A short time before Enron went under, along with $7 trillion of the national market, the state administration bought $300 million of Enron stock with pension funds of the teachers retirement fund and $300 million from the firemen and police funds. They became worthless. Nothing happened; it was just a blip on the assets and liability charts.

Just recently, it came to light that administration had also bought risky stock with other portfolio funds that affected local governments. When a rush to withdraw half of those portfolio funds occurred, the state closed those funds to preclude further erosion of that portfolio. As I understand it, Mr. Stepanovich, a significant member of that committee, has resigned. The question remains: Who will be held accountable for making those risky investments?

Six-hundred million dollars does not sound like a lot of money when the pension funds have billions, but $600 million is a lot of money when tens of thousands of teachers, firemen and policeman paid into those pensions for 40 years or more, especially in light of the fact the FEA had to go to court to acquire an independent pension fund. Some favored people made money, i.e. commissions, for those transactions. How many more billions has the state squandered?

The same holds true for the pension and other funds this county has in that state portfolio. Will you ask the League of Counties to seek redress to regain the funds you lost? The suggestion that you use the landfill funds to absorb the loss is unacceptable. If you recall, it was barely 10 years ago that you brought in someone to clean up the mess previous directors had left of that landfill operation. It is now a money making operation, which this commission has used to fund other projects. It should not become of victim of this scandal.

The same question people are asking the state government is one I ask of this local government. What has happened to all those extra receipts you collected these last three years? How can you have such a deficit this year and next? The so-called solutions rendered thus far are at the expense of ordinary taxpayers. That amendment in January is likely to fail, so we will be back to square one.

The federal and state governments have lost the trust of the American people. Will the Highlands County government lose our trust?

Gabriel Read
Avon Park

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