MBTA Refuses to Disclose Key Financial Information

BOSTON - April 30, 2014 - PRLog -- Massachusetts Citizens for Jobs sent a public records request to the MBTA asking for documents regarding financial details of the MBTA Retirement Fund and that request was denied.  The MBTA claims that it cannot locate any documents related to the MBTA Retirement Fund and Fletcher Asset Management, a hedge fund that the MBTA Retirement Fund is now suing.

“You shouldn’t be proposing massive fare hikes when you haven’t explained how you lost tens of millions of dollars and you refuse to provide records to the public.  The MBTA apparently has little oversight of its pension fund and lacks the ability to properly mitigate any potential major losses, and this is a major problem.  When asking for more money from taxpayers it is only right to fully disclose as much financial information and decisions that resulted in major losses for the MBTA.” said Andrew Goodrich, Executive Director.

Massachusetts Citizens for Jobs is interested in finding out what transpired between top MBTA officials, the MBTA retirement fund, and a hedge fund that the MBTA is now suing for fraud.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Nine months after Karl E. White left his job as chief of the MBTA pension fund to join a New York hedge fund, he visited his former colleagues in Boston to pitch them on an investment idea.

White, in his new job as chief investment officer of Fletcher Asset Management, told the authority’s pension board members in 2007 that he had devised an investment fund just for them, and that it was relatively low risk. They gave their prominent former leader $25 million to invest.

Today, that money is gone — a fact the MBTA has not previously disclosed — and a series of Fletcher hedge funds are bankrupt."  – Boston Globe, Dec 20, 2013
--------------------------------------------------------------------
        Why did the MBTA not disclose to the public immediately the alleged fraud from this hedge fund?

·         How can the public trust the MBTA when they refuse to be transparent with their financial information?

·         How can the MBTA claim to not have any documents regarding Fletcher Asset Management, and Karl White who used to run the MBTA Retirement Fund?

Click here for a link to the public records requests filed by Mass Citizens for Jobs regarding the MBTA.

Massachusetts Citizens for Jobs is a 501c4 dedicated to researching Beacon Hill to bring more transparency to the anti-jobs and anti-business sentiment prevalent in the State House.  For more information, and to view a database of public information regarding legislators and the legislative process visit www.masscitizensforjobs.org