North Carolina's former chief investment officer, Pat Gerrick, asked some of her then-subordinates in the state treasurer's office to help her daughter with college homework.

In April 2007, Gerrick provided her daughter, Meredith, with the email addresses for five members of Gerrick's staff, who are charged with overseeing the state pension fund, currently worth more than $60 billion, according to emails provided under a public records request. The staff members responded with answers to several questions from an investment-oriented group project for Meredith Gerrick. The staff members included the operations manager for the investment management division and the fixed income portfolio manager.

Gerrick was fired by State Treasurer Janet Cowell in August amid questions about travel expenses and cell phone bills. Questions have also been raised about Gerrick's relationships with firms that did business with the state.

Gerrick said last week that she asked her staff for help with the homework but made clear it was not an order.

"I just sent it around," Gerrick said. "I think you’ll see on the email, it says, 'If you have time, if you want to do it.'"

State Treasurer Janet Cowell announced the creation of a new, 11-member commission to make recommendations for sustaining and strengthening the state pension fund.

The commission, whose members have not been named, will craft proposals for, among other needs: providing adequate retirement income, managing investments and their risks and attracting and retaining the workforce that state and local governments need.

Cowell, who oversees the state pension fund, made the announcement during a pre-retirement planning and workforce symposium at N.C. State University Friday. She said the current economic crisis provides an opportunity to design a retirement system for the state's future workforce.

"Hopefully North Carolina can be a model for a how a public plan can evolve through these times," Cowell said in a prepared statement, "and still have a strong, secure, and safe retirement for the people who lead a life of public service."

North Carolina's state pension fund fell below the fully funded mark last year for the first time since 1997, State Treasurer Janet Cowell reported Thursday.

The state retirement system was 99.3 percent funded as of Dec. 31, 2008, which means it had slightly less money than it needs to pay the retirement benefits that are projected for the future, Mark Johnson reports. That estimation by actuaries is compiled once a year.

The funding level is likely to continue to decline as investment losses from the recession are spread over several years, Cowell cautioned in a prepared statement.

"State and local governments will need to continue to budget for increased contributions to the system,” she said.

The pension fund still ranks as one of the top five in the nation and remains funded well above the national average of 80 percent, Cowell's office said, quoting the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. In 2007, the system was overfunded at 104.7 percent.

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Treasurer Janet Cowell will not give bonuses this year.

Last year, the legislature gave the state treasurer the authority to give performance-based pay bonuses to the chief investment officer and four directors of the state pension plan.

But a sagging economy and sensitivity to other state workers led Cowell to put the program on hold this year, said spokeswoman Kerra Bolton.

The decision follows a similar move last week by the N.C. Banking Commission, which held $200,000 in performance bonuses it had budgeted.

Bolton said that the bonus program helps the state compete with private sector firms for people to make investments., noting that 11 of the 13 largest public pension plans have similar programs.

"This is important because high-performing investment professionals increase the chances for above benchmark performance, save systems substantial sums in external management fees, and help to insure the prudent investment and oversight of  public plan assets," she said in an e-mail to Dome.

Janet Cowell may no longer be a senator, but she's still interested in legislation.

The Democratic state treasurer is lobbying for at least 11 bills in the General Assembly this session, most of which affect her office:

Investment Risk Reduction: Give treasurer's office more flexibility on types of investments for the state pension fund.

Stimulus Reconciliation: Authorizes state to issue different kinds of debt to take advantage of the federal stimulus package.

Treasurer Transparency: Expands treasurer's Investment Advisory Board and sets a standard for assessing decisions.

Property Protection: Limits amount that businesses or individuals can charge for retrieving property held in escheat by the state.

Public Campaign Financing: Expands public campaign finance program to include state treasurer among other offices.

Electronic Reporting: Requires banks and insurance companies reporting large amount of escheats to use state-approved software.

Data Sharing: Permits N.C. Department of Revenue to share certain tax information with the treasurer's office.

Energy Savings Contracts: Removes the cap on energy saving contracts, requires life-cycle cost analyses of conservation measures, among other things.

Pension Corrections: Makes technical corrections to the statutes covering the pension fund and similar state funds.

Retirement COLAs: Addresses cost-of-living adjustments for retirees under the state pension fund and judicial pension fund.

Fire and Rescue Pension: Increases the monthly payment for members of the Firemen's and Rescue Squad Workers Pension Fund.

North Carolina's pension lost about $4.1 billion in the first three months of 2009.

State Treasurer Janet Cowell said Tuesday that the negative 6.4 percent return, which left the pension fund valued at $55.9 billion, was about average.

About 41 percent of the funds are invested in stocks, another 47 percent in bonds, six percent in real estate and the remainder in other investments.

Cowell asked lawmakers to put $358 million into the system over the next two years to make up the losses, but a projected $3 billion budget deficit makes that unlikely. (WRAL)

The Senate Finance Committee, meantime, gave is approval to a bill that would expand the types of investments Cowell can make for the fund, allowing 10 percent more to go into nontraditional investments.

Cowell said that would reduce risk. (Insider)

State Treasurer Janet Cowell, who manages the state's $60 billion pension fund, announced Thursday several steps to provide greater transparency to how her office makes investment decisions. The measures include:

-- Creating a one-year cooling off period for employees who leave the treasurer's office, during which they cannot lobby or market services to the office.

-- Starting a request-for-proposal process for law firms that want to handle legal work for the Treasurer's office.

-- Adding more members with investment experience to the Investment Advisory Committee.

-- Posting quarterly reports on the department's Web site showing where money is invested and how it's performing.

-- Hiring an independent consultant to evaluate the ethics, oversight and decision-making of the investment practices.

Former State Treasurer Richard Moore ended up in a dispute with Attorney General Roy Cooper last year because Moore hired private law firms to represent the state in legal action instead of letting Cooper's office handle the work. One of the firms' partners was a major supporter and contributor to Moore's campaign for governor. Cooper's office said they encouraged Moore to set up a competitive process for hiring outside counsel.

"One of the many casualties of the current economic crisis is the erosion of public trust in government and financial institutions," Cowell said, adding that one route to repairing that loss is to let the public see where money is invested and how investment decisions are made.