For fiscal year 2023, our pension plan only had a 5.3% rate of return, lagging both of the market’s other major indicators by several points. Given that the Plan is basically a big index fund, not so different from the Dow Jones or the S&P, that should raise alarm bells about our state’s investment strategy. We have a duty to provide our state employees the best retirement we can—and when the plan lags like this, it means we’re not meeting that goal.
I’ve talked about this before, but it’s pretty clear to me what’s gone wrong here, and it’s that the current Treasurer holds about 13% of the plan’s total value in cash—basically keeping it under the state’s mattress instead of putting it to work creating excellent value for North Carolina’s taxpayers.
Here’s the thing: under normal circumstances, we could argue all day long about the merits of holding some of the pension plan in reserve as a rainy day fund, but these aren’t normal circumstances. Right now, one out of every four positions with the State are vacant right now, negatively affecting everything from our schools to our prisons to the DMV. John, it’s a crisis, and if we want to solve it, we have to make working for North Carolina a better deal for prospective employees.
To do that, we need to make sure we’re creating the best possible value for our pension plan. We need to make sure we’re offering great benefits and healthcare. We need to be offering existing employees raises that at least do the bare minimum of keeping up with inflation. And right now, we’re just not. The Treasurer’s office doesn’t have control over all of those things, but in the circumstances, letting our state’s retirement fund lag behind the market is negligent. We owe our people better.
When our taxpayers pay into the system, they expect the highest quality of services in return, and we can't provide that to them unless we can attract the highest quality of people to come work for North Carolina. We've got to have a Treasurer who's willing to invest—and if we elect another Republican fiscal conservative to this office, I don’t think we can guarantee that anything will change.
But changing the way our state government works—building a Treasurer’s office that sees that actually investing the state pension fund is also making an investment in our people and our future—is going to take all of us working together. John, can I count you in to donate to our campaign today? Any amount helps us get our message out to voters and brings us that much closer to a North Carolina where we’re focused on creating opportunity for everyone.
