Posted by The New York city comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr., is staking his mayoral campaign on his skills as a financial manager, which he says are exemplified by his supervision of the nation’s largest municipal pension system.
But a review of how the $80 billion system has performed since he took office shows it has consistently lagged behind many of its public pension peers even as the city tripled the number of money managers it uses and the fees that it pays those firms.
Over the last seven years, four of the five city pension funds performed below the median for similar funds around the country. In fact, more than two-thirds of big public pension funds did better than the city’s largest fund, the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, according to a widely used financial yardstick compiled by Wilshire Associates, an investment advisory firm.
“It’s consistently below average, and that’s not where you want to be,” said Edward A. H. Siedle, president of Benchmark Financial Services, a Florida firm that audits pension plans.
