By Samantha Marcus, NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
TRENTON — The heads of New Jersey’s largest pension funds, skeptical of the hundreds of millions of dollars in investment fees and bonuses paid to private companies, say they plan to launch a probe into how the state awards those fees.
The Public Employees Retirement System Board of Trustees on Wednesday voted to conduct a forensic audit of the fund’s expenses, following a similar vote earlier this week by the trustees of the Police and Firemen’s Retirement System.
Fees and bonuses for the pension fund’s investments hit a high last year. The state spent roughly $265 million on management fees and expenses and $335 million on performance bonuses, which are referred to as “performance allocation” in a State Investment Council annual report.
“Why are we paying that kind of money?” said Wayne Hall, chairman of the PFRS Board of Trustees. “When I see the exorbitant fees the state has been paying for the last couple of years, I have to question that.”
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