Hollywood Firefighters' Pension Fund

Hollywood Firefighters' Pension Fund

The Hollywood (Fla.) Firefighters' Pension Fund provides retirement and disability benefits to the sworn firefighters of Hollywood, Florida. Governed by a board of trustees that includes active firefighter representatives Jameel Ziadie, Derek Fleischner, David Hernandez, and Brian Wilkie alongside Chairman Alexander Diaz, the fund operates as a defined-benefit municipal plan. The board's composition — dominated by current fire service personnel — sets it apart from plans run entirely by professional investment staff, grounding its governance in the first-hand experience of its beneficiaries. The fund's strategic posture tilts toward diversification away from public equities. Allocations to real estate and timberland signal a preference for tangible assets that can provide yield and a hedge against inflation. As a participant in the Florida Public Pension Trustees Association (FPPTA), its trustees engage directly with educational resources on fiduciary duty and emerging asset classes, a structure that often exposes smaller municipal plans to private credit, infrastructure, and hedge fund strategies prevalent in the Florida institutional ecosystem. The board of trustees is composed of five named fiduciaries whose terms and appointments reflect the Florida statutes governing firefighter pension boards: a chairman elected by the membership, active firefighter trustees, and a fire chief's representative. The Florida Division of Retirement regulates the plan, which is a tax-qualified governmental plan under Section 401(a) of the Internal Revenue Code. Its investment policy, like that of many Florida municipal pensions, must balance actuarial return assumptions — typically 6.5% to 7.5% — with the political and liquidity constraints of a small-to-mid-sized city. A distinguishing structural element is the plan's direct-trustee governance model. Unlike larger pension funds that delegate portfolio construction entirely to an outsourced chief investment officer or consultant, the Hollywood board retains direct fiduciary authority. This embedded-governance model means investment postures can shift with trustee education and FPPTA peer exposure, creating path dependency in its alternative investment commitments that differs from plans with permanent professional investment committees.