# Town of Manchester Pension Plan

Town of Manchester Pension Plan is a Pension Fund based in Manchester, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Pension Fund
- **Headquarters:** Manchester, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** Manchester, CT, United States
- **Assets under management:** $150M – $200M (Altss estimate)
- **Website:** www.manchesterct.gov
- **LinkedIn:** https://www.manchesterct.gov

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

The Town of Manchester Pension Plan is a defined-benefit scheme for municipal workers, governed by a volunteer board of trustees chaired by Jan Johnson. Day-to-day administration is staffed by the town's Director of Finance, Kimberly Lord. The plan's existence is tied to the fiscal health of the Town of Manchester, a Hartford suburb; its managers regularly submit the town's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for a Government Finance Officers Association award, signaling a culture of public-sector reporting rigor. The plan's investment menu reveals a tilt toward asset managers rather than operating companies. Known holdings include the GMO Benchmark-Free Allocation Fund — a multi-asset vehicle designed to ignore conventional market-cap weightings — and a stable-value product from Voya, appropriate for the defined-contribution 457/401 plan sidecar. Geographic concentration appears entirely domestic, with no international direct investments evident in the public record. The board meets as a committee of the town government, with members like Assistant Town Manager Kasia Purciello and regional finance professionals Christine Carr, Claire Hearn, and Harun Ahmed. The absence of a dedicated chief investment officer is the defining operational fact: a nine-member board of civil servants and appointees reviews manager performance and funding ratios without a professional investment staff layer between them and asset managers. The plan's administrative team participates in the New England States Government Finance Officers Association network, where peer-plan governance practices are a main agenda item. What distinguishes the Manchester plan structurally is the directness of its governance chain. There is no intermediary investment office, no CIO, and no consultant-advised outsourcing — just a finance director staffing a volunteer board that writes checks directly to institutional fund managers. For an allocator calling on the plan, the economic buyer is not a career investment professional but a municipal board weighing actuarial funding status against manager proposals.

## Sectors

- Distressed Debt
- Secondaries & Special Situations

## People

- Jan Johnson — Chairperson, Pension Board
- Kimberly Lord — Director of Finance
- Steve Stephanou — Town Manager
- Christine Carr — Board Member
- Claire Hearn — Board Member
- Mary Roche Cronin — Board Member
- Kasia Purciello — Board Member
- Kevin Zingler — Board Member
- Harun Ahmed — Board Member

## Questions

### Who runs investment decisions at Town of Manchester Pension Plan?

A nine-member volunteer Pension Board, chaired by Jan Johnson, is responsible for investment policy and manager selection. The board is staffed by Director of Finance Kimberly Lord, who handles administration but does not have unilateral investment authority. No dedicated chief investment officer exists within the plan structure.

### How large is the Town of Manchester Pension Plan?

The plan has not publicly disclosed its assets under management. Based on available municipal financial data, the plan's assets are estimated at approximately $178 million (Altss estimate). This places it in the lower tier of US public pension funds by asset size.

### Where does the plan's capital come from?

Funding comes from Town of Manchester employer contributions and employee member contributions, as part of the town's annual budget process overseen by Town Manager Steve Stephanou. The plan is a defined-benefit scheme, meaning retirement payouts are guaranteed and funding shortfalls fall to the municipality.

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Last updated: 2026-08-11T02:43:31.692Z

Canonical page: https://altss.com/profile/town-of-manchester-pension-plan

Maintained by Altss — https://altss.com — methodology: https://altss.com/methodology