Gov. Charlie Crist and Attorney General Bill McCollum put off a request from Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink to expand the board they make up that oversees the agency in charge of $185 billion in state investments.

Sink, the sole member of the panel with any professional financial experience, is proposing an expansion of the State Board of Administration to include at one least investment expert and also wants the panel to get some training in financial matters.

But McCollum, a Republican running against Democrat Sink to replace Crist as governor next year, balked at his political opponent’s suggestion. Crist, also a Republican, backed him up.

Sink wants to add at least two members to the Board of Trustees that supervises the SBA, which manages the state’s $110 billion retirement fund. She suggested expanding the three-member panel to include an investment expert and someone who is invested in the state’s pension fund, the fourth largest in the nation, like other states with similar boards.

But McCollum and Crist put the brakes on making any decision about the board.

“I’m of the adage that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” McCollum said. “Our SBA governance may be different from that of other states but it doesn’t mean it’s broken.”

A recent report found that Florida’s three-member board of trustees is far smaller than any the 15 other states that have similar pension funds, which have an average of ten members.

Sink said the board, created in the late 1880s, needs to modernize. Sink, a banker and former Florida president of Bank of America, also wants the current panel to get some financial training. The SBA oversees about $185 billion in investments.

“Right now we have a board with three people, none of whom are required to have financial experience,” Sink said. “That might have been good for 1885, but it’s not good for the 21st century. If we have a board managing a $110-billion investment fund, it just seems to me the board should have some kind of training and knowledge.”

McCollum wants the Investment Advisory Council, another panel that oversees the SBA’s investments, to weigh in on Sink’s proposals before taking any action.

The panel put off further discussion of Sink’s proposals until its December meeting.

The SBA was shaken nearly two years ago when it was forced to stop withdrawals from a local government investment fund after an $8 billion run on the fund leaving some school districts and municipalities scrambling to pay their bills.

Tags: Alex Sink, Bill McCollum, Charlie Crist, SBA, State Board of Administration

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 12:25 pm and is filed under 2010 campaigns, Alex Sink, Bill McCollum, Charlie Crist, state agencies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.