Missouri Investment Trust: Facts You Should Know

This is from our Colorado fellow retiree and friend, Cheryl Flagg. Cheryl has been "fighting the fight" against divestiture in her state as we have in ours. She sheds some much needed light on the divestiture crowd's poster girl from Missouri, Sarah Steelman! John

Cheryl Flagg to John Curry, August 29, 2007
Subject: Re: Missouri Investment Trust: Facts you should know!

As retirees of public pension funds, many of us have concerns about the misinformation being conveyed regarding Sarah Steelman's divestment of the Missouri Investment Trust. As we all know, the Missouri legislature has not passed either a Sudan or an Iran divestment bill for Missouri's public pension funds. However, the media, certain organizations, and some legislators have promoted the Missouri Investment Trust divestment as a model upon which all public pension funds should base their own divestment.

The Missouri Investment Trust was established, according to their charter, as "an agency created by state law to manage long-term funds held on behalf of various cultural groups in the state". It is not a pension fund. The Missouri State Audit website listed the Missouri Investment Trust total assets of $21,106,050 in December, 2003; this was the final audit done before the much touted divestment. The two audit reports since the divestment were for the years 2005 and 2006. However, the Missouri Auditor's website at http://auditor.mo.gov/auditreports/prsg17.htm lists only a phone number, (573)-751-2411, to call for a copy of the latest Missouri Investment Trust audit. The audit for the year 2002 can be found at http://auditor.mo.gov/press/2003-39.htm and the one for 2000 is at http://auditor.mo.gov/press/2001-22.htm The Ohio Retirement Study Council minutes from 22 May 2007 states on page eight that the Missouri Investment Trust showed a 3.9% increase in returns. One has to wonder why this is seen as positive when public and business pension funds are garnering 8-15+% on recent returns; (see attachment above for the returns of the top 200 pension funds in the U.S.)

Questions: Given this information, why would anyone compare the Missouri Investment Trust to public pension funds with assets worth millions and millions of dollars? Why would anyone want to reduce public pension fund returns to only 3.9%? And, why hasn't the Missouri legislature passed pension fund divestment? Finally, shouldn't the media, certain organizations, and some legislators get out of the business of comparing the Missouri Investment Trust to public pension funds since there is no basis for comparison? Think about it...and don't believe the propaganda. They only want to destroy public pension funds as we know them.

Cheryl Flagg

Colorado PERA Retiree