Politics on the Hudson

The value of the state Teacher Retirement Fund dropped by $7 billion between the end of July and the end of September, a fund spokesman said today.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the larger state Common Retirement Fund, managed by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, refused to disclose how the balance in that fund, $153 billion last March, has changed since then.
The funds are used to pay benefits to hundreds of thousands of retired state, school-district and local-government workers. Their benefits are guaranteed by the state constitution, but investment losses could mean higher costs to taxpayers to fund them.
The disclosure of the loss for the teacher fund comes after the nation’s largest public-pension system, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, announced this week it is considering raising its charges on taxpayers there after the fund lost 20 percent of its value from June through Oct. 10.
A spokesman for the New York teacher fund said the losses won’t mean more charges for taxpayers, at least right away, because those rates are set on a five-year average of returns, and the fund has had a number of good investment years. The value has dropped from about $95 billion to $88 billion.
A spokesman for DiNapoli, Robert Whelan, said updates on the size of the fund are issued only once a year, because the fund takes a long-term perspective on its investments.
But Robert Freeman, director of the state Committee on Open Government, said DiNapoli is required by the state Freedom of Information Law to disclose the latest estimate of the size of the fund.
“Assuming there is a record or there are records which indicate the gains or losses or the value of the retirement system at any given time, those records in my opinion would unquestionably be accessible under the freedom of information law,’’ he said.
Gannett News Service today sent a formal request for the information under the law, which DiNapoli’s office is considering. Under the law, he has agency has five business days to respond.