Boston Globe (Editorial) – The MBTA Retirement Fund does not hold public meetings or publish minutes, and it’s fighting a law the governor signed last summer to make its records public. This is a staggering show of arrogance, as the FBI and SEC investigate a failed $25 million investment for possible fraud. The fund’s board members must open its meetings and its records, and be held accountable to both retirees and taxpayers. And if the board resists, the Legislature should force its hand.
As reported by the Globe’s Beth Healy, the board that runs the MBTA retirement fund operates in a secret world in which standard ethics and disclosure laws do not apply. The story of the failed $25 million investment shows where immunity from public scrutiny can lead. In 2007, board members handed over $25 million to Karl E. White, the pension fund’s former executive director, to invest in Fletcher Asset Management, a New York hedge fund where he had taken a job as chief investment officer.
