West Springfield Retirement Board

West Springfield Retirement Board

Established under Massachusetts law, the West Springfield Retirement Board administers the pension fund for all eligible employees of the City of West Springfield, excluding teachers, and the West Springfield Housing Authority. The board is composed of five members—both appointed and elected—including Chairperson Sharon Wilcox, Fire Chief William Flaherty, and retired Assistant HR Administrator Gwen Keough. The system is one of more than 100 local contributory retirement systems operating across the Commonwealth, each bound by the investment and reporting rules set by PERAC. As a PERAC-regulated entity, the board's investment strategy follows the prudent-person rule and the investment guidelines issued by PERAC, which historically emphasize traditional asset classes. While specific allocations are not publicly detailed in a readily accessible format, Massachusetts public pension portfolios of this size typically allocate across domestic equities, fixed income, and real estate, with limited exposure to alternatives. The board's investment decisions are subject to PERAC review, and its performance is benchmarked against actuarial assumed rates of return—a figure annually certified by the system's actuary and reported to the state. The five-member board oversees the fund with administrative support from Retirement Director James Lovotti and legal counsel Michael Sacco. The board's members are not full-time investment professionals but rather municipal officials and employee representatives carrying out their fiduciary duties as part of a public body. The system is a member of the Massachusetts Association of Contributory Retirement Systems (MACRS), a professional network that advocates for the state's local retirement boards and provides education on governance, benefits administration, and investment management. The structural differentiator of the West Springfield Retirement Board is its governance: it is a volunteer body operating under tight statutory constraints, where all material investment decisions—from manager selection to asset allocation changes—must be made in public session, subject to Massachusetts open-meeting law. This creates a disclosure regime and a pace of decision-making fundamentally different from a private family office or corporate pension fund. Succession is governed by the municipal election and appointment processes that fill board seats, not by a founder's estate plan.