Treasurer Curtis Loftis Continues Criticism of Investment Commission

On Friday, the South Carolina Investment Commission announced that the return on the state pension fund for year-end 2012 was 12 percent. For the three years ending Dec. 31, 2012 the return was 8.3 percent. The state assumes at least a 7.5 percent return for budgeting purposes.

The Commission has been existence since 2005, but this was the first time it has released a report on calendar-year results of the fund, which is used to pay for state employee pensions. The worse the fund performs, the more employers--who are paid with tax dollars--have to contribute.

While the Commission boasted of the fund's performance, State Treasurer Curtis Loftis was far from satisfied. He issued the following statement (see attached documents and accompanying notes):

“Again, the South Carolina Investment Commission presented financial information to the public without proper context. The Commission failed to report that their performance for the calendar year placed them in the bottom 35% of large pension plans.

Every year that we under-perform our peers is a year that public service employees and taxpayers must pay more of their hard earned money into the state retirement system.

Our Investment Commission continues to pay too much in fees and earn too little in returns and our overly complex portfolio places the system at risk.

I asked the Investment Commission to stop using misleading information to hide its poor performance and yet they continue to do so.

As State treasurer I am the Custodian of the funds. The Commission regularly denies me information pertinent to the safe-keeping of those funds and without that information I cannot guarantee the safety of the 27.8 billion dollar SC Retirement trust Fund."

Loftis is the only elected official on the Commission and has been in a long-running battle with his peers for the purpose of demanding more transparency in results and the participation of fund managers.

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