Board members of the Baltimore Employees? Retirement Systems like to travel.
A lot.
They have been on jaunts around the country and around the world ? to Monte Carlo, India, Paris and Vancouver ? for investment conferences. They receive $10,000 per year per person for education. But even with that stipend, they could not attend these conferences without heavy discounts from the organizer, right?
Who pays full price ? and subsidizes cheaper rates for ERS attendees?
Fund managers and brokers, the same people who want and some of whom already have the city?s business. On the surface, the discounts may look as if they save the city money. But what they really do is make trustees ? and the city ? beholden to the companies paying their way.
We suspect you would join us in thinking this smells.
So does City Council member Mary Pat Clarke, District 14, who told The Examiner?s Stephen Janis, “It?s a gift. A discount is a gift.”
Baltimore?s ethics code forbids city employees to accept gifts directly or indirectly from people or businesses who want or have business with the city. We hope that is why ERS Executive Director Roselyn Spencer and two other board members will not be traveling as scheduled to Alpha Max 2006 in Barcelona, Spain, next month. Spencer said she will not be moderating a panel discussion and said no one from the board will attend. She would not explain why she or the others would not be attending. And she refuses (so far) to disclose her travel itinerary over the past year.Maybe the grand jury could help?
Jared Rose, a representative from Opal Financial Group, the event organizer, said The Examiner was hurting public pension funds around the country by our reporting of ERS board members? extensive overseas travel. Public pension board members often lack financial experience, he said. These conferences help them choose good fund managers, he said.
But that philosophy hasn?t worked in Baltimore. Performance of the $1.3 billion fund has foundered in recent years, largely due to poor management decisions by politically connected advisers, according to a March Calvert Institute for Policy Research report.
Besides, each board member could earn an MBA at one of our great local universities with their education fund if they truly wanted to learn sound investment principles. Or go to a conference in Philadelphia or Washington and be home at night with their families.
We?d like you to know where Spencer traveled last year and how it benefited city employees. We?d also like a full review of trustees? travel expenses by the City Council. If they violated ethics rules, they should refund the city.
