Blair County Employees' Retirement Fund Ends 2021 with a Strong Quarter

The Blair County Retirement Board, consisting of Commissioners Bruce Erb, Amy Webster and Laura Burke, along with Treasurer Jim Carothers and Controller A.C. Stickel, recently met with Pat Wing and Bill Torre of Marquette Associates, Inc. to review the Blair County Employee Retirement Fund’s Investment Performance Report for the fourth quarter of 2021.

The fund had an investment return of 5.2 percent for the quarter (net of investment management fees), outperforming its policy benchmark return of 4.7 percent. The performance placed the fund in the top 17 percent in a national database of public funds of all sizes for the quarter. For 2021, the fund had an investment return of 14.2 percent (net of investment management fees), outperforming its policy benchmark return of 13.3 percent and generating an investment gain of $4.9 million.

Since investment policy and investment changes were enacted by the board in late 2014, the fund’s return ranks in the top 45 percent in a national database of public funds of all sizes. During the same period the fund’s risk-adjusted return ranks in the top 24 percent in a national database of public funds of all sizes. This indicates that the risk taken to generate the fund’s return is better than 76 percent of the public funds included in the national database over this period.

The board’s concerted effort to control investment costs and a disciplined rebalancing approach have largely driven the favorable results relatives to peer funds. With investment management fees at just 0.28 percent, Mr. Wing noted that fees paid by the fund remain considerably below most public fund peers.