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Retiree Benefit Trust of St. Mary's County (OPEB)
Established and governed by the Commissioners of St. Mary's County, the Retiree Benefit Trust of St. Mary's County (OPEB) is a single-employer trust dedicated...
Retiree Benefit Trust of St. Mary's County (OPEB)
Established and governed by the Commissioners of St. Mary's County, the Retiree Benefit Trust of St. Mary's County (OPEB) is a single-employer trust dedicated to financing post-employment healthcare and life insurance benefits for eligible county retirees. Its oversight sits with the five-member Board of County Commissioners, who convene in Leonardtown, Maryland, and the trust operates as a component unit of the county government. While the trust does not publish a standalone asset total, its related county entities — including the school system and the metropolitan commission — maintain their own parallel OPEB trusts inside the MABE and MACo programs. The trust channels its assets predominantly through two pooled vehicles. The core long-term allocation sits inside the MACo Pooled OPEB Trust, a statewide investment program administered by the Maryland Association of Counties, and daily liquidity is held in the Maryland Local Government Investment Pool (MLGIP). This structure means the trust does not directly select fund managers or make direct investments; instead, it relies on the MACo program’s professional investment advisory framework and the MLGIP’s short-term fixed-income strategy. Separately, St. Mary’s County Public Schools directs its own OPEB trust assets through the MABE Pooled OPEB Trust, while MetCom and the county library system place their OPEB assets into the MACo Trust. No dedicated full-time investment staff manages the trust. The Commissioners delegate administrative functions to county finance personnel, and the board participates in investment oversight as part of its broader fiduciary governance of county resources. The trust’s primary operating partners are the two professional associations — MACo and MABE — that pool OPEB liabilities from municipal employers across Maryland. The St. Mary's County government's website and public agendas reference the trust in relation to annual actuarial valuations and budget appropriations, but specific AUM or portfolio composition reports are not published as separate line items. The trust’s architecture reflects Maryland’s unusually centralized approach to public-employee OPEB financing. Rather than building an in-house asset management capability, St. Mary’s County co-invests alongside other Maryland municipal employers inside pooled trusts that aggregate liabilities statewide. This design shifts investment governance, manager selection, and performance reporting to the association-level administration, while the county retains only the actuarial funding policy and annual contribution obligation. For allocators examining the Maryland municipal OPEB landscape, the St. Mary’s trust illustrates the default posture for a mid-sized county: full delegation to pooled vehicles with no disclosed direct-investment program.
General information
Firm type
Pension Fund
Year founded
2008
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Leonardtown
Corporate office
Leonardtown, MD, United States
Principals
Eric Colvin
Commissioner
James R. Guy
Commissioner
Michael L. Hewitt
Commissioner
Mike Alderson, Jr.
Commissioner
Scott R. Ostrow
Commissioner
Frequently asked questions
Who makes investment decisions for the St. Mary's County OPEB Trust?
The five-member Board of County Commissioners holds fiduciary authority over the trust, with administrative support from the county's Department of Finance. Day-to-day investment management is effectively delegated to the managers of Maryland's state-sponsored investment pools — the Maryland Local Government Investment Pool (MLGIP), the Maryland Association of Counties (MACo) Pooled OPEB Trust, and the Maryland Association of Boards of Education (MABE) Pooled OPEB Trust — each of which oversees asset allocation and security selection for its participant trusts.
How are the OPEB assets of St. Mary's County component units handled?
St. Mary's County Public Schools maintains its OPEB trust assets in the MABE Pooled OPEB Trust, a separate legal vehicle managed for participating school boards across the state. The St. Mary's County Metropolitan Commission and the county's Public Library each hold their OPEB assets in the MACo Pooled OPEB Trust. None of these component unit trusts is commingled with the county's own OPEB trust, and each board governs its trust independently.
What investment vehicles does the trust use?
The county's OPEB trust invests primarily through the Maryland Local Government Investment Pool (MLGIP), a short-term investment fund managed by the Maryland State Treasurer's Office that is restricted to U.S. Treasury securities, federal agency obligations, and high-quality money-market instruments. The component unit trusts invest through the two targeted Maryland OPEB pools — the MACo Pooled OPEB Trust and the MABE Pooled OPEB Trust — which may hold longer-duration fixed-income portfolios alongside limited equity exposure, though the exact asset mixes are determined by the pool managers, not by the county.
Does the trust make direct investments or fund commitments?
No. The Retiree Benefit Trust of St. Mary's County does not engage in direct private investments, fund commitments, or co-investments. All investable assets are funneled through Maryland's cooperative investment pools, a structure shared by many of the state's small municipal OPEB trusts. The trust's board has no in-house investment team and does not issue RFPs for external managers outside the established state pools.
Where does the trust's funding originate?
The trust is funded through annual required contributions from St. Mary's County's general fund, supplemented by state and federal grants where applicable, and by investment earnings retained within the trust. The county's actuarially determined contribution is calculated by an external actuary every two years and disclosed in the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, alongside the OPEB liability and the trust's funded ratio.
Are the trust's assets commingled with the county's pension fund?
No. St. Mary's County operates a separate pension plan for its employees, which is not part of the OPEB trust and is managed under a different set of fiduciary arrangements. The OPEB trust is a single-purpose irrevocable trust established solely to pre-fund retiree health and other post-employment benefits, and its assets cannot be used for pension obligations or general county operations.
What is the trust's relationship with the Maryland State Treasury?
The trust's primary investment vehicle, the Maryland Local Government Investment Pool (MLGIP), is an instrument of the Maryland State Treasury. The State Treasurer administers the pool under statutory authority, and participant units — including St. Mary's County — hold shares in the pool rather than direct securities. The pool's portfolio composition and yield are publicly reported by the Treasury, but individual participant balances are not individually disclosed by the state for competitive and privacy reasons.
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