Redford Township Police & Firemen Retirement System

Redford Township Police & Firemen Retirement System

The Redford Township Police & Firemen Retirement System was established in 1937 as a single-employer defined benefit pension plan for the township's public safety personnel. Administered by a board of trustees that includes Township Treasurer Lily Cavanagh and President John Buck, the system operates within Michigan's municipal retirement framework. It pays lifetime retirement annuities to career police officers and firefighters and provides survivor benefits, a structure that ties its liability stream directly to local government funding and actuarial assumptions set at the township level. The fund's investment strategy is concentrated in external real estate commitments, based on documented holdings in funds managed by American Strategic Value Realty Fund and TerraCap Partners — spanning mixed-use and commercial properties across the United States. The system also lists Highlands REIT among its assets, adding a publicly registered non-traded REIT to the private-fund mix. These positions point to a board that prioritizes income-producing hard assets within a compact manager roster, a pattern typical of smaller municipal plans where every allocation consumes a disproportionate share of governance bandwidth. With an estimated $78 million in assets, the plan runs lean — no dedicated investment staff, no separate offices, and no adjacent venture or co-investment vehicles disclosed. The board of five trustees combines elected and appointed officials, whose investment decisions are shaped by MAPERS membership and Michigan's Public Employee Retirement System Investment Act. That regulatory environment imposes statutory lists of permissible investments and requires annual actuarial valuations, which become the primary check on asset allocation. Recent board composition shows turnover, with Scott Byrnes serving as a trustee during 2023–2024 and Alan Reichenbach listed as a trustee as of 2025. The structural feature that sets this plan apart from a purely generic small pension is its single-employer, public-safety-only design. Unlike a municipal general employees' plan that pools risk across departments, this system isolates a narrow, physically demanding workforce whose retirement eligibility and mortality assumptions differ materially from civilian municipal employees. That narrow participant base concentrates longevity risk and ties the fund's health to police and firefighter retention rates, collective bargaining outcomes, and the township's ability to make annual required contributions. For an external GP or co-investor, the board's MAPERS network and multi-vintage TerraCap relationship represent the only visible sourcing funnel.