City of Dearborn

City of Dearborn

The City of Dearborn Retirement System administers pensions for two distinct employee groups: police and fire personnel under the Chapter 22 Revised Retirement System, and general municipal employees under Chapter 23. Both plans fall under a single pension administrator, Robert Festerman, with governance provided by a board of trustees chaired by Randa Dagher and vice-chaired by Alan Brzys. The mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, holds ex-officio authority over board appointments. The system deploys capital predominantly through external fund commitments rather than direct investments. Its strategy spans real estate and special situations, with known commitments to vehicles including Alidade Capital Fund V, TerraCap Partners funds, and the Entrust Special Opportunities Fund. This positions Dearborn as a limited partner in commercial real estate and opportunistic credit strategies alongside other institutional allocators. The fund-of-funds structure provides diversification across managers and geographies — a practical posture for a mid-sized municipal plan without a large internal investment staff. The system participates in the Michigan Association of Public Employee Retirement Systems (MAPERS) and the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems (NCPERS), embedding itself in the governance and litigation networks that shape public pension policy. These affiliations provide access to manager research, fiduciary education, and collective advocacy on behalf of plan participants. The plans' legal counsel serves as general counsel for MAPERS. Dearborn's architecture is defined by its bifurcated plan structure under unified administration — a governance design common in Michigan municipalities, where police and fire pensions often carry distinct benefit tiers from general employee plans. The single-administrator model concentrates oversight in one professional while preserving separate plan accounting, a practice that balances administrative efficiency with legal separation of liabilities.