Peralta Community College District Retirement Board

Peralta Community College District Retirement Board

The Peralta Community College District Retirement Board was established on April 13, 2011, to govern the district's Other Post-Employment Benefits Trust and comply with GASB 75 accountability standards. Chair William Withrow and Deputy Chair William Riley set policy alongside a board that draws from district operations: members include Deputy Chancellor Greg Nelson and Vice Chancellor of Human Resources S. Jamila Buckner. The trust serves roughly 30,000 students' educators and staff across Berkeley City College, College of Alameda, Laney College, and Merritt College. The board's investment strategy pursues a multi-asset-class mandate designed to fund OPEB liabilities across market cycles. Public filings indicate exposure to the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index, the MSCI US REIT Index (mixed-use US properties), the Bloomberg Commodity Index, and the FTSE Gold Mines index, alongside a dedicated private equity allocation. The REIT component tilts toward US mixed-use assets, while the commodity sleeve hedges inflationary pressure on future health and welfare payouts. No individual direct investments or co-investments are disclosed publicly. Board meetings are held at Sequoyah Country Club in Oakland, a setting that places fiduciary oversight within a professional-network context typical of public-sector pension bodies. The board has not published asset totals, consultant mandates, or manager lineups, and no fund-level performance data is available in the public domain. There is no indication of a parallel foundation or separate co-investment vehicle tied to the retirement trust. The Retirement Board's architecture is purely that of a public pension trustee — embedded inside the community college district's administrative structure rather than operating as an independent investment office. The presence of the district's COO and HR leadership on the board ensures a tight feedback loop between district workforce planning and trust investment strategy, a governance choice that distinguishes it from asset-staffed public funds.