City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander is looking to sink millions in taxpayer cash to boost the salaries and size of his staff overseeing pension-fund investments — despite lackluster returns in recent years, The Post has learned.
Under the scheme, the Bureau of Asset Management would shell out an additional $10.4 million for staffers, according to the comptroller’s office.
An April proposal from the comptroller’s office, which a source provided to The Post, recommended spending $5 million to hire an additional 21 investment team members. The bureau advises the board of trustees for each of the five city pension funds and oversees over $274 billion in assets.
The comptroller’s office also wants windfalls for existing staff, including engorging the already-hefty six-figure salaries of top honchos, according to a July proposal.
Chief Investment Officer Steven Meier would receive a nearly 39% raise, bumping his current salary of $350,000 to $485,000. Chief Operating Officer Lynne Fleischman’s salary would skyrocket 87.5%, from $200,000 to $375,000. The bureau’s deputy chief investment officers would see their salaries jump 45%, from $300,000 to $435,000, documents show.
The proposed salary hikes would amount to an additional $5.37 million annually, according to the comptroller’s office.
Under Lander, who took office in 2022, the five city retirement systems had a combined 8.1% rate of return for 10-year investments in fiscal year 2023, which fell to 7% for the year ending June 30, according to the website Public Plans Data and the comptroller’s office.
That trails several of the nation’s largest government pension plans, including the California State Teachers Retirement System, the Oregon Public Employee Retirement System, and the Virginia Retirement System, which respectively saw 8.7%, 8.3% and 8.2% returns for 10-year investments in FY 2023, according to Public Plans.
Lander crowed this week that the city retirement funds raked in a net 10% return on 1-year on investments through June 30 — above the 7% target rate set by the state.
The gains, however, still fell short of the 13.2% return that would have come from a standard portfolio of 60% global stocks and 40% US bonds, according to investment consulting firm Wilshire.
The S&P 500, meanwhile, netted nearly 23% return over the same period.
“Why give raises for middling results?” a former senior official in the comptroller’s office told The Post. “These levels of pay increases are so out of bounds they should only be for a radical scenario like indexing the whole [pension] portfolio and using the savings to pay the CIO.”
Critics have torn into Lander for supporting “Environmental, Social and Governance” investing, which takes into consideration whether companies and funds champion progressive causes, rather than prioritizing investor return.
“ESG investing, like any other deviation from focusing exclusively on investment returns, could explain some or all of the underperformance by Brad Lander and his office,” Edward Siedle, a former SEC attorney and pension forensics investigator, told The Post.
“We should be using public dollars to uplift New Yorkers, not giving well-paid financial professionals astronomical raises,” one Democratic source seethed.
“If this is how the comptroller is wielding his limited power in his current seat, could you imagine what he would do if he ever got to City Hall?”
Shaquana DeVissiere, a spokeswoman for the comptroller’s office, said a review found the city’s salary levels were “substantially lower” than those for similar public pension funds, and a consultant recommended increasing pay to attract and retain staff.
“After a collaborative process with the trustees of the City’s five pension funds, the comptroller’s office recommended lower levels than those proposed by the assessor, and below the median for comparable funds,” she said, adding that two of funds’ trustees already voted to approve the increased budgets.”
Meier and Fleischman didn’t return a request for comment.
