Dearborn Heights Employee Pension System

Dearborn Heights Employee Pension System

The Dearborn Heights Employee Pension System is the retirement trust for municipal employees of Dearborn Heights, Michigan, a suburban city of about 12,000 residents west of Detroit. It comprises two legally distinct retirement systems — the Police & Fire Act #345 Pension System and the General Government Retirement System — each governed by its own board. Harold Dalton presides over the police and fire board, while Vincent Macari chairs the general government board. Laurie Kupchick serves as pension administrator for both entities, a role that centralizes day-to-day operations and investment coordination. The system's investment mandate targets growth-oriented strategies across public and private markets. Asset-class exposure includes domestic equities, fixed income, real estate, and private equity growth capital commitments — the latter reflecting an allocation to funds that invest in expansion-stage companies. The fund participates through institutional limited-partner commitments rather than direct deals or co-investments. Geographic focus remains heavily domestic, though the broader growth-capital exposure may include US-headquartered companies with global operations. The system coordinates investment strategy with the adjacent City of Dearborn pension plans, sharing consultants and selected fund managers — a practice that provides scale efficiencies for both municipalities. Team size and total assets remain undisclosed in public filings. The Michigan Association of Public Employee Retirement Systems (MAPERS) counts the plan among its members, linking it to the state's network of municipal pension professionals. No dedicated investment staff is separately identified, suggesting the system relies on external consultants and board oversight for manager selection and asset-allocation decisions. In recent years, Michigan municipal plans of comparable size have faced actuarial pressure to close funding gaps through contribution increases and return assumptions adjustments — a dynamic that shapes the system's posture toward illiquid private-market allocations. Structurally, the two-board design creates a separation of interests that is uncommon in single-pool municipal systems. Police and fire benefits often carry earlier retirement eligibility and higher cost-of-living adjustments than general employee plans, which means investment-return requirements and risk tolerances can differ between the two boards even though they share an administrator. This architecture makes the Dearborn Heights system a case study in how small municipal plans navigate specialized liability profiles while operating at a scale where every basis point of manager fees matters.