One of the great lessons taught in law school is: Remember that there are two sides to every story.
I contend The Retirement Systems of Alabama’s investments greatly help all Alabamians by creating jobs and tax revenue, greater than any normal return.
A poor state like Alabama cannot support a sound pension program unless that state grows in wealth. Thus was born an idea: The stronger we can make Alabama, the stronger the RSA will be.
Recent reports have stated that the RSA’s 2011 returns trail most public pension funds, but there are reasons for that. While member benefits are not at all affected by investment performance, unlike 401(k) accounts, taxpayers — which include RSA members — are directly affected by investment performance.
As RSA investment performance has shown for decades, the RSA investment staff performs average on common stocks and above average on fixed incomes and cash management. That only leaves the 10 to 12 percent invested in Alabama.
An initial return on an Alabama investment will normally be lower, but the RSA believes it will be greater over the long term.
While RSA’s performance does not capture any of the positive effects on the tax base and jobs created, you only have to look at how surrounding businesses have prospered after an investment by the RSA in a specific area.
When major corporations look at Alabama, they see that we are willing to invest in ourselves, which makes a big impact on their decision to invest in us.
When the RSA began investing in Alabama, tourism was a $1.8 billion a year industry; today, it is $9.8 billion per year — that is $8 billion each and every year more.
RSA television stations provide $30 million per year in advertising to make that happen, along with millions more from our newspapers, billboards and movie theater companies. Either we invest in ourselves, or we return to the 1950s and 1960s, when little thought was given to our future.
Upon my arrival at the RSA, we had $500 million in assets. Today we have $24 billion. At that time, the RSA had 25 percent funding. Today, it is 71 percent for the Teachers’ Retirement System and 67 percent for state workers in the Employees’ Retirement System.
The uninformed will say we need 100 percent funding, but 80 percent to 85 percent is the right level of funding. When a pension fund reaches the 100 percent level, there is pressure to provide members with increased benefits.
In comparison, most public health insurance funds only have a tiny fraction of full funding, similar to Social Security.
During my lifetime, Alabama has been near the bottom on most everything other than university sports. The RSA has tried during the past 20 years to make Alabama something better.
Without the RSA, there would be no auto industry in Alabama and no renaissance of Montgomery, Mobile or the Shoals.
In addition, the RSA has had for nearly 40 years no hint of corruption like numerous pension funds or Jefferson County.
For the critics: Let us not look at the couple of pages of good or great Alabama investments, but my biggest Alabama blow-up — the railcar plant in the Shoals.
Yes, the RSA spent about $560 million on the most modern railcar plant in the world. But when the Canadian company left in the middle of the project, the options were either to stop and lose hundreds of millions of dollars, or finish the plant and see if something positive could come from the project.
The critics are correct when they say the current appraisal is $340 million, but without the Navistar lease of the plant for 10 years, the appraisal would have been at scrap value or about 10 cents on the dollar.
Alabama taxpayers must realize that, per the Alabama Development Office, 10,657 direct and indirect jobs will be created when Navistar reaches 1,800 employees. Most important will be the impact of a yearly estimated payroll of $270 million.
In the first 10 years of the lease, the payroll in the Shoals will exceed $2.7 billion — many times our investment. The investment appraisal will improve each year as the site expands.
This means that even though the state (taxpayers) has to guarantee and “make up” the $220 million loss, the revenue generated by the project for the state and taxpayers far exceeds that loss or under-performance.
In this highly competitive world, that is how the RSA has made Alabama truly competitive for jobs over the past two decades.