Palm Beach (Fla.) Employees’ Retirement System

Palm Beach (Fla.) Employees’ Retirement System

The Palm Beach Employees' Retirement System manages pension obligations for the town's workforce, operating as a hybrid defined-benefit and cash-balance plan. Chairman Daniel W. Stanton, a former Goldman Sachs partner, leads a board that includes Town Manager Kirk Blouin and Deputy Town Manager Bob Miracle. Administrator Gillian Barth, the town's Director of People & Culture, handles plan administration. The fund allocates across a diversified strategy that spans equities, fixed income, and alternatives. On the private-markets side, confirmed allocations include the JP Morgan Strategic Property Fund, a core-plus real estate vehicle, and a separate direct lending portfolio targeting US middle-market credit. Geographic exposure is concentrated in the United States. The plan does not publicly report total assets or detailed asset-class weightings. The board participates in the Florida Public Pension Trustees Association (FPPTA) for trustee education and governance networking. Unlike larger state pension systems, the Palm Beach plan operates with a lean administrative structure embedded within the town government, with no dedicated investment staff listed beyond the board-level fiduciaries. The fund's structural differentiator is its governance model: investment oversight falls to a board of municipal officials and a retired Wall Street partner, rather than a standalone investment office. This trustee-governed architecture places fiduciary duty directly on individuals whose primary professional roles lie outside the pension fund, a common pattern among smaller municipal plans but one that requires deliberate reliance on external consultants and fund managers.