Morgantown Finance Director Kevin Tennant briefs City Council members about the losses suffered by the police and fire pension funds in the last fiscal year, which ended June 30.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WV News) — The pension funds for Morgantown’s police officers and firefighters each suffered major losses last year because of poor stock market performance, Finance Director Kevin Tennant told City Council during a regular meeting Tuesday night.
Each year, an actuary hired by the Municipal Pension Oversight Board reviews the funds and writes a report on their performance, City Attorney Ryan Simonton explained.
Tennant said council must be made aware of the report, and then it is submitted to the state, which will then contribute its share to the pension funds. The state will contribute $647,000 to the police pension fund and $588,000 to the fire department’s fund.
The report was not covered in depth at Tuesday's meeting, though the data was provided to council in a packet that is also publicly available.
Tennant drew special attention to the fair market value losses, which were about $3.5 million for the police fund and $3 million for fire.
“[We were] hit hard this past year. I think July had recovered some. Not sure about August, but then I know September, it's been very bad again for investments as well,” Tennant said.
The fiscal year covered by the reports ended June 30.
The police pension fund started the fiscal year with $19,707,129 and ended with $16,258285, a return on investment of minus 15.11%, according to the report. The fire pension’s return was minus 15.14%, ending the year with $13,709,149 after starting with $16,528,896.
It will be two years before the actuary report shows the impact of the bad year, Tennant said in response to a question from Mayor Jenny Selin. The report council will see this fall will be more favorable.
“Two years from now is when this really poor performance will show up, in that it will report that the unfunded liability will grow in two years from now,” Tennant said. “Last year was a great year. Investments recovered from COVID and had huge gains, and they were just all lost this past year.”
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