Tag: Toledo Blade

Editorial: No Crypto in 401(k)s

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.toledoblade.com/opinion/editorials/2022/10/08/no-crypto-in-401-k-s/stories/20221004017

Excerpt:

Meanwhile, in Congress the Retirement Savings Modernization Act was just introduced to allow cryptocurrency and just about anything short of lottery tickets into America’s 401(k) accounts. The alternative asset industry — private equity, hedge funds, venture capital, real estate, and more — has been trying for years to offer their speculative products — and reap huge fees in the process — through personal retirement accounts as they are already able to do in some public pensions, such as Ohio’s.

There has been no legal barrier to these investments, and the Trump administration’s Department of Labor went so far as to specify that alternative investments could be part of 401(k)s, a decision affirmed by the Biden Administration. But companies administering 401(k) accounts are fiduciaries, and they’ve avoided alternative investments in fear of getting sued for breach of fiduciary duty for offering them to workers. For decades, prudence has prevailed and 401(k) retirement accounts have not allowed high-fee, illiquid funds as a 401(k) option.

The proposed bill simply states that alternative investments, despite the higher fees associated with them, are “covered” investments that do not establish fiduciary breach by their presence in a 401(k) plan. The cloak of congressionally created cover for alternative investments is needed because the current commonsense assumption is that the mere presence of these investments is strong evidence fiduciary duty has been breached.

Author(s): Blade Editorial Board

Publication Date: 8 Oct 2022

Publication Site: Toledo Blade

Ohio’s Out-of-the-Box Pension

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.toledoblade.com/opinion/editorials/2022/09/18/editorial-ohio-out-of-the-box-public-pension/stories/20220914044

Excerpt:

Alarm bells should be ringing about the Ohio Police & Fire Pension following the release of a fiduciary audit of the fund, finished six years after the legal deadline.

Ignoring the law falls on the Ohio Retirement Study Council and their creator, the Ohio General Assembly. But the warnings on investment risk within the OP&F portfolio demand immediate, widespread attention.

The combined pension contribution for police is 31.75 percent of their salary and with firefighters the employer-employee combination is 36.25 percent.

…..

Ohio Police & Fire is “clearly thinking outside the box,” according to Funston Advisory Services. “OP&F is among a very small number of major institutional investors to have adopted a risk parity investment approach across the plan’s entire investment structure,” Funston tells us. Ohio’s police and fire pension is also a pioneer in an investment strategy called “portable alpha.”

In each case, the characteristic that separates OP&F from the rest of the public pension pack is “meaningful use of portfolio leverage.” The Ohio safety forces pension is using one of the riskiest investment strategies in America. The 25 percent of leverage showing on the balance sheet is actually much higher because the alternative investments also include leverage.

The entire portfolio is managed by outside managers, 135 fund managers by our count, who pulled down “mind boggling” fees according to pension expert Richard Ennis. If Mr. Ennis’ name sounds familiar you probably remember he was the expert Ohio turned to for comprehensive analysis of the Coingate scandal at the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation. Mr. Ennis gave us an assessment of the OP&F performance over the last 10 years that indicates the pension matched the results of an index fund despite the high fees.

Author(s): The Blade Editorial Board

Publication Date: 18 Sept 2022

Publication Site: The Toledo Blade

Ohio has underreported coronavirus deaths by 4,000, state discloses

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.toledoblade.com/local/Coronavirus/2021/02/10/ohio-new-coronavirus-cases-still-below-average/stories/20210210105

Excerpt:

Ohio reported 3,281 new coronavirus cases Wednesday, which is below the 21-day average of 4,105, while also disclosing that statistics from late last year appeared to have underreported coronavirus deaths by as many as 4,000 people.

The state has reached a total of 928,631 cases and 11,856 deaths, according to the Ohio Department of Health. Sixty-three of those deaths were reported Wednesday, which is below the 21-day average of 69.

But that death toll does not yet include deaths from October, November, and December that were omitted and “will be added to the state’s death count during the coming week,” the health department said in a statement.

Publication Date: 10 February 2021

Publication Site: Toledo Blade