"While this may be an overly optimistic approach there is every indication that our funds can reach double-digit earnings by the end of this year," says PRIM Board member Paul Shanley. "We've reached 12.5% through August and while there will be some bumps in the road ahead, it is certainly within reason to say that we can hit 15% or greater by the end of December."

Shanley, a state retiree, is an elected member of the Commonwealth's Pension Reserves Investment Management (PRIM) Board, which is responsible for the investment of 85% of the state's pension funds which are contained within the Pension Reserves Investment Trust (PRIT) Fund. These funds include the state, teachers and the pension capital of a large number of our local retirement systems that have chosen PRIT as their investment vehicle. Shanley sits on PRIM's investment committee.

"I don't think Paul is going out on a limb by predicting 15%," says Association President Ralph White, a former PRIM Board member. "Most of PRIT's asset categories have ended their losing streaks and are holding their own or better, while the heavy hitters, domestic, international and emerging market stocks - over 50% of the fund - are averaging 15% or more in earnings this year."

Locals Even Better

A quick scan of a half-dozen local retirement systems that are not fully invested in the PRIT Fund show even greater progress than PRIT.

While we only have the numbers through July for these systems, remember that PRIT's July figure was 7.85%, therefore, this is the number to which these local systems should be compared. The earnings of the following systems through July are in parentheses:

New Bedford, a $182 million fund (11.06%); Woburn, an $82.5 million fund (11.3%); Brockton, which is a one-half billion dollar fund (14.59%); Hampshire County, its fund valued at $156 million (10.4%); Norfolk County, a one-half billion dollar fund (9.54%); and Natick, valued at $60 million (8.91%).

While short-term, some systems will do better than PRIT, long-term, PRIT (currently 9.5%) has done better than most and should continue to do so. However, this most recent comparison is intended to show that all of our systems, mega-PRIT and others, are moving forward once again with their investment earnings, which is so vital in projecting our ability to obtain future COLAs and a higher base.