New board for state pension plan BIG win for Raleigh pols, Wall Street cronies

Chapel Hill Republican — and rookie state treasurer – Bradford Chatsworth Fancyboy Briner IV continues to earn rave reviews from the Raleigh chattering class for his work in demolishing the last remnants of the Dale Folwell era.

Prior to 2016, the Democrats who ran the state treasurer’s office bent over backwards to service the various investment houses seeking their piece of the action in re: the state employees pension plan. Big commissions were being doled out like Halloween candy.

When Republican Dale Folwell took over at the treasurer’s office, he thought it was a neat idea to pay more attention to the needs of the folks paying into the plan as opposed to those of the investment house crowd seeking to pay for just one more Maserati.  

Running for the open seat in 2024, Briner criticized his fellow Republican Folwell for being too conservative with plan member money.  Briner thought the plan should be retooled toward taking bigger risks and making everybody really rich really quick.

Prior to the 2024 campaign, Briner was in the investment game with some Obama cronies.  So, THIS is his crowd.

Folwell made an interesting point when confronted by people who felt like Briner does:  Are you looking to take big risks and possibly win the lottery jackpot, or are you trying to ensure you and your loved ones have enough to meet your needs when retirement arrives? 

Folwell reasonably assumed most people want to play it safe with their retirement funds and pursued a strategy to accomplish that goal.

But with Folwell now out of the way, Team Berger and the rest of the Raleigh shakedown crew saw their chance to pounce:

[…] North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein signed a bill into law Friday that would change how the state picks investments for its $127 billion pension plan.

Why it matters: The new law fulfills a campaign promise for Brad Briner, a Republican recently elected state treasurer, to move the pension plan’s management from a sole-fiduciary model to a model where a board votes on the decisions.

• Up until now, North Carolina was one of the few remaining states where the state treasurer made the final investment decisions on all public investment funds in the state.

Driving the news: House Bill 506 creates the North Carolina Investment Authority, which will be made of a board of five people: the state treasurer and four other members appointed by the House speaker, the Senate leader, the governor and the treasurer.

• Board members, who will need at least 10 years of experience in pension, endowment or investment management, will make final decisions on investments and risk tolerance.

What they’re saying: “This bill puts North Carolina in line with the rest of the nation and allows us to make responsible decisions investing our state employees’ hard-earned pensions. I applaud Treasurer Briner for his leadership in modernizing our state’s investment system,” Stein, a Democrat, said of the bill in a statement.

So, why bother electing a treasurer if this board will now call the shots?

This lets the Wall Street crowd get back in the door and their hands back on North Carolina retiree money.  The investment house donors who bet big on Raleigh politicians in the last election get a win here.  They are back in the game big time.  Bigger risks will likely be taken — bigger risks, potential bigger payoffs (?), potentially bigger commissions (?)  — with retiree money.

We’ll have to wait and see if this move actually benefits anyone outside of the Raleigh donor or political class.