NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA: SBA to Begin Public Quarterly Briefings
Aug 31, 2009
|
|
Immediate, Continual Updates at |
SBA TO BEGIN PUBLIC QUARTERLY BRIEFINGS
By KATHLEEN HAUGHNEY
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA
THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, Aug. 19, 2009……….In May, Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink lit into the State Board of Administration for what she felt was a lack of information from the agency to its executive branch overseers and called for a revamping of the SBA governing structure.
The result is a separate quarterly briefing of Sink, Gov. Charlie Crist and Attorney General Bill McCollum by SBA director Ash Williams, which begins Tuesday.
“Most of the information is not necessarily new, but it gives them a chance to look at the facts behind the figures,” said SBA spokesman Dennis MacKee. “And it’s just a continuing part of the evolution toward more transparency.”
The SBA, which invests millions of dollars on the state’s behalf including state workers’ pension money, has come under much scrutiny in the past two years. The plummeting markets have put the state’s Hurricane Catastrophe Fund at risk and the pension fund is running at less than 100 percent for the first time in years.
And in December 2007, local governments essentially staged a run on the bank when investments in the Local Government Investment Pool were reduced to junk bond status while officials said publicly that investments were solid. The scandal led to the resignation of former SBA director Coleman Stipanovich.
“Everybody’s been shaken so much by financial markets in the last year or so, so probably transparency provides some enhanced comfort,” MacKee said.
State officials had praised Williams and his interim predecessor Robert Milligan for changes they had brought to the SBA in terms of transparency, but the SBA trustees – Crist, Sink and McCollum – all agreed there should be more oversight.
“I personally don’t feel very comfortable spending a few minutes tagged on at the end of the Cabinet meeting on it,” Sink said in an interview Monday about how the agency is normally dealt with by the governor and Cabinet.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Williams will be briefing the trustees extensively on the Florida pension plan, which is currently worth $99.6 billion, down from $126.9 billion at the beginning of the 2008-2009 fiscal year.
The decrease means the pension is funded at about 93 percent, but for retirees, there is no practical effect, because all of the money is not withdrawn at once. Many states operate their pension funds far below 100 percent, and Florida’s pension fund is actually considered among the strongest in the country.
A Standard and Poor’s report on state pension funds using 2007 data, ranked Florida as the third strongest fund in the country, behind Oregon and North Carolina. Illinois, Oklahoma and Rhode Island were at the bottom of the list, with their pensions all funded below 62 percent.
Williams will also be addressing the LGIP, which has regained strength since the 2007 scandal and reached full liquidity in December 2008. Briefing materials provided by the SBA also include presentations on the CAT fund and ongoing projects for the board.
-END-
8/31/09
Independent and Indispensable