County goes with actuary’s recommendation

Carbon County is moving back to a five-year averaging method to value its assets when it comes to its retirement fund.

On Thursday, the county retirement board voted to move from the Act 44 method to the smoothing method for valuing its assets. The recommendation came from Hank Steel of Korn Ferry, the actuarial company hired to provide portfolio services.

Robert Crampsie, county controller and secretary to the retirement board, explained that the actuary has been recommending this move since last fall.

Carbon County has been on the Act 44 method since 2008, when the stock markets took a big hit.

Act 44 was created by state legislators to help counties and the state government continue to fund retirement systems by overvaluing assets to hold the value better, thus reducing the annual required contributions.

Before that, the county was under the smoothing method, which took a five-year average to create the value of assets.

“It’s been 10 years and the market has rebounded, so I think it would be a good idea to go along with the recommendation because they think the timing is right,” Crampsie said.

The move brings the county’s annual required contribution for 2018 to $720,000.

In other matters, the retirement fund portfolio value as of April 30 was $76,605,210.