Author: Mary Pat Campbell

Gov. Wolf puts critic back on $60 billion pension board

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.inquirer.com/news/torsella-psers-garrity-muth-20210225.html

Excerpt:

In November, Democrat Joseph Torsella lost his position as an overseer of Pennsylvania’s $60 billion school pension fund when he lost reelection as state treasurer. But on Thursday, Gov. Tom Wolf tapped Torsella to return to the PSERS board as his representative.

The appointment, which requires majority approval by the State Senate, would restore Torsella to a growing reform bloc on the 15-member board for PSERS. That stands for Public Schools Employees’ Retirement System, which sends checks to about 250,000 retired teachers and other former school workers.

During his single four-year term as treasurer, Torsella, by dint of his position, served on the PSERS board and that of its smaller, $30 billion sister fund for state employees, known as SERS.

Author(s): Joseph N. DiStefano

Publication Date: 25 February 2021

Publication Site: Inquirer

Pension fund agrees to push further on corporate board diversity

Mary Pat Campbell
Pension fund agrees to push further on corporate board diversity

Excerpt:

 The board that manages the state’s $86.9 billion pension fund voted Wednesday morning to increase its standards for board diversity and equal employment opportunity at the thousands of companies it invests in, and to promote shareholder proposals related to health coverage and pandemic hazard pay.

The Pension Reserves Investment Management (PRIM) Board signed off on the policy changes developed by Treasurer Deborah Goldberg and recommended by a PRIM subcommittee that would direct PRIM to use its proxy vote as a shareholder to vote against board nominees if the gender and racial makeup of the company’s board do not meet PRIM’s standards, and to support requirements that companies be diverse in terms of race, gender, use of minority-owned businesses as contractors, and use of women-owned businesses as contractors.

Author(s): COLIN A. YOUNG

Publication Date: 25 February 2021

Publication Site: Lowell Sun

Will Connecticut’s New Vaccine Plan Achieve Its Goals?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.governing.com/now/Will-Connecticuts-New-Vaccine-Plan-Achieve-Its-Goals.html

Excerpt:

 In announcing a surprising new vaccine distribution plan Monday, Gov. Ned Lamont said Connecticut’s approach was designed with two factors in mind: speed and equity.

“Broadly speaking, these are our goals for vaccination,” Lamont said. “Get as many people vaccinated as we possibly can … and complement that with equity, knowing full that our Black and brown population here in this state and around the country are twice as likely to suffer complications from an infection and half as likely to get vaccinated.”

But experts are divided on whether the new strategy will truly accomplish those goals — and particularly whether it will truly maximize equity. While state and hospital officials say this plan, which establishes priority groups almost strictly by age, will create a smoother, faster rollout, skeptics worry the new eligibility guidelines are not as inclusive as those the Lamont administration jettisoned.

Author(s): EMILY BRINDLEY, HARTFORD COURANT

Publication Date: 25 February 2021

Publication Site: Governing

Lawmaker Proposes to Ban AI and Its Discriminatory Impact

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.governing.com/security/Lawmaker-Proposes-to-Ban-AI-and-Its-Discriminatory-Impact.html

Excerpt:

The Washington state Legislature, which has proposed legislation in the past to tackle issues such as data privacy and the use of facial recognition tech, is now reviewing a bill that would regulate the use of “automated decision systems” and AI technology within state government.

According to the bill, these systems use algorithms to analyze data to help make or support decisions that could result in discrimination against different groups or make decisions that could negatively impact constitutional or legal rights.

As a result, Senate Bill 5116 aims to regulate these systems to prevent discrimination and ban government agencies from using AI tech to profile individuals in public areas.

Author(s): KATYA MARURI, GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY

Publication Date: 26 February 2021

Publication Site: Governing

NYC Pension Funds Rebound After Missing Fiscal 2020 Target

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/nyc-pension-funds-rebound-missing-fiscal-2020-target/

Excerpt:

New York City’s five pension systems have bounced back from a 4.4% return for fiscal year 2020 that missed an actuarial target of 7%, to return roughly 18% in the first seven months of fiscal year 2021, according to a report from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

Since fiscal 2012, the pension funds, which had approximately $239.8 billion in assets under management (AUM) as of November, have earned an average of 7.5% annually on their investments.

According to the Comptroller Office’s Review of the Financial Plan of the City of New York, pension contributions have stabilized after growing rapidly for many years, mainly due to higher-than-expected investment returns and savings from lower-cost pension plans enacted for employees hired after March 2012. However, the contributions are still forecast to total $10.1 billion in fiscal 2022.

Author(s): Michael Katz

Publication Date: 25 February 2021

Publication Site: ai-CIO

Senate passes bill boosting ERB pension fund

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.abqjournal.com/2363378/senate-passes-bill-boosting-pension-fund-contributions.html

Excerpt:

New Mexico’s teacher pension fund would benefit from stepped-up taxpayer-funded contributions under a bill that won Senate approval Thursday.

Senators voted 36-6 to pass the measure, Senate Bill 42, which would also extend for two more years a program for retired educators who return to the classroom.

….

Specifically, the bill would increase the taxpayer-funded employer contribution rate paid into the pension fund by 1 percentage point over each of the next four years – taking the rate from 14.15% to 18.15% by the 2025 budget year. Employee contribution rates into the fund would not change.

Author(s): DAN BOYD / JOURNAL CAPITOL BUREAU CHIEF

Publication Date: 25 February 2021

Publication Site: Albuquerque Journal

Ontario Pension Has Worst Loss Since 2008 on Bad Covid Bets

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-25/ontario-pension-has-worst-loss-since-2008-on-private-equity-hit

Excerpt:

Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, one of Canada’s largest pension funds, posted its worst result since the global financial crisis after suffering big losses in its private equity and real estate holdings.

The pension fund, known as Omers, lost 2.7% on its investments last year, pushing assets to C$105 billion ($84 billion). It’s the worst result since 2008, when it lost 15.3%.

….

The pension fund fell far short of its 6.9% return benchmark, and also trailed the average 10% increase of Canadian pension plans, as estimated by Bank of New York Mellon Corp.

Author(s): Paula Sambo

Publication Date: 25 February 2021

Publication Site: Bloomberg

N.Y. Pension Prods Companies to ‘Confront Institutional Racism,’ Or Else

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-25/n-y-pension-prods-companies-to-boost-diversity-or-face-a-vote

Excerpt:

The New York State Common Retirement Fund, the third-largest U.S. public plan, said it’s pressing companies to boost their ethnic and gender diversity, and will vote against directors who fail to act.

“Companies must root out racial inequality, just as they would root any other systemic problem that puts their long-term success at risk,” New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli said in a statement Thursday. “Corporate America must join in the national reckoning over racial injustice and confront institutionalized racism.”

The New York pension, which has $248 billion of assets, plans to file shareholder proposals supporting increased diversity on corporate boards. It also will seek better disclosures about the gender and ethnic breakdown of companies’ employees. The fund said it will vote against board members who ignore these requests.

Author(s): Saijel Kishan

Publication Date: 25 February 2021

Publication Site: Bloomberg

Moderna Says Covid-19 Vaccine for South Africa Strain Is Ready for Human Testing

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/moderna-says-covid-19-vaccine-for-south-africa-strain-is-ready-for-human-testing-11614201000

Excerpt:

Moderna Inc. said it has made the initial batch of doses of a new Covid-19 vaccine designed to better protect people against a new strain of the coronavirus that has shown some resistance to the company’s original vaccine.

The Cambridge, Mass., company on Wednesday said it shipped the new shots to the National Institutes of Health to conduct the first human study of the variant vaccine, which could start within weeks.

The new vaccine, code-named mRNA-1273.351, is designed to better match the virus variant that was first identified in South Africa but has since spread elsewhere.

Moderna, which makes the second Covid-19 shot authorized in the U.S., might be the first vaccine maker to have finished the laboratory work of designing a shot targeting variants that started spreading swiftly late last year.

Author(s): Peter Loftus

Publication Date: 24 February 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Tax Hikes for High Earners Are on the Table in Some States

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/tax-hikes-for-high-earners-are-on-the-table-in-some-states-11614162600

Excerpt:

Budgetary pressures vary greatly, despite calls for more federal aid in general and tax hikes in some locales. In New York, state revenue collected from April through December 2020 was 4.1% lower than in the year-earlier period, according to data from the Urban Institute think tank.

In New Jersey, the drop was 2.4%. With tax revenue outperforming earlier projections, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy on Tuesday proposed making a full payment to the state’s pension system for the first time since 1996. California has done even better, with revenue collections growing 1.2%.

While a governor can call on lawmakers to raise taxes, the odds of success for the various proposals depend partly on which parties control state legislative chambers. Additionally, Democrats in Congress have pushed to include money for cities and states in an economic-recovery package, which could shift the equation.

Author(s): Karen Langley

Publication Date: 24 February 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

Pfizer’s Covid-19 Vaccine Is Equally Effective for Young and Old, Israeli Study Finds

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/israeli-study-finds-pfizer-shot-equally-effective-for-young-and-old-11614204008

Excerpt:

The Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE is equally effective across all age groups, including those over 60, according to a new Israeli study, in a boost of confidence to global vaccine efforts.

The Pfizer vaccine provided around 94% protection against developing coronavirus symptoms across all age groups above 16 a week after the second shot of a recommended two-dose regimen, according to a study by researchers from Israel’s Clalit Research Institute and Harvard University. The study also found the vaccine is 92% effective in preventing severe disease.

The results are in line with the vaccine maker’s own clinical trial, but the large size of the study, which covered nearly 1.2 million people, provides more precise insight into older age groups that were sparsely covered by the drugmaker’s trial, according to the study’s authors.

Author(s): Dov Lieber

Publication Date: 24 February 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

‘The Genome Odyssey’ Review: From Code to Clinic

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-genome-odyssey-review-from-code-to-clinic-11614207479

Excerpt:

The fact that critical information lurks within the three billion or so pairs of letters representing our genetic instructions was a key driver of the Human Genome Project, begun in 1990 and completed, with suitable fanfare, 13 years later. But translating DNA sequence into actionable insight hasn’t been easy. This is a major theme of “The Genome Odyssey,” Euan Ashley’s impassioned, firsthand account of the effort to bring genomic data into clinical practice and help patients like Carson and Chase.

For starters, says Dr. Ashley, a cardiologist and geneticist at Stanford, there was the price — prohibitively high early on. Thanks to advances in technology, the cost of sequencing an individual’s DNA has declined a million-fold since 2003 — the equivalent, he says, of a Ferrari plummeting from $350,000 to less than 40 cents. The time required to decode a genome has plunged to days rather than years or months. When Jazlene, a newborn girl with a dangerously abnormal heart rhythm, arrived at Stanford in 2014, Dr. Ashley and his colleagues were able to identify the genetic cause within days and “practice more ‘precise’ medicine” by fine-tuning the infant’s therapy.

Author(s): David A. Shaywitz

Publication Date: 24 February 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal