Management Audit Services

The Vendor is required to provide to jointly require a management audit of the business and property of each of its pension and retirement systems once every five years by an independent qualified management auditing firm.
- These audits assess whether the systems are operating in the most efficient and economical manner and evaluate the asset allocation of the system.
- Governance, Financial Planning, and Efficient/Effective Administration
•    Determine whether the pension system department is organized in a manner that facilitates effective and efficient operations, including an assessment on whether the department’s span of control is adequate for the complexity of its operations.
•    Evaluate whether the department is staffed with and managed by individuals possessing appropriate skill sets to effectively manage the plan. 
•    Assess whether board composition is consistent with other pension systems in terms of subject matter expertise.
•    Determine whether plan fiduciaries (i.e., board members and key management staff with discretion over the assets) are properly fulfilling their responsibilities as related to the retirement plan. 
•    Assess whether there are adequate ethics and conflict-of-interest provisions in place for plan fiduciaries.
•    Review the plan’s operational practices for efficiency and adherence to established policy or leading practices. 
•    Determine whether investment activities comply with established objectives and policies adopted by the plan. 
•    Assess whether agency has adequate procedures for long-term financial planning to ensure that appropriate/timely financial strategies and decisions can be made by the pension system management and its plan sponsor.
- Actuarial Assumptions, Asset Allocation, and Investment Performance
•    Assess the adequacy of actuarial methods in order to assure the validity of actuarial assumptions.
•    Evaluate the adequacy and reasonableness of the manner in which retirement plan’s assets are allocated. 
•    Determine whether system investments are adequately diversified in order to minimize the risk of loss and maximize the return.
•    Assess how investment managers’ performance is evaluated and determine whether there are tools in place to hold managers accountable for underperformance.
•    Analyze and opine on past performance and trajectory of agency investments, actuarial predictions, contributions, and unfunded liabilities and provide comparative benchmarking analysis against a comparable peer group (e.g., city’s other pension systems and public/private sector utility pension systems) and identify best practices and key success factors.
- Benchmarking
•    Benchmark and contextualize industry-recognized performance and organizational metrics and practices related to staffing, governance, funding ratios and liabilities, investment performance, employee/employer contributions, administration of healthcare benefits/costs, projected pension benefits growth, health subsidy growth.
•    Compare the average retirement compensation paid to retirees to peer group (city’s other pension systems and other public and private utility pension plans). 
•    Determine average retirement compensation paid to retirees by job classification.
•    Compare number of disability retirements to peer group (other public and private utility pension plans).
- Budget: $350,000

- Contract Period/Term: 5 years
- Pre Proposal Conference Date: September 30, 2025
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: October 09, 2025