Metro East Sun

After projecting its investments would grow by 5.5 percent, the East St Louis Firefighters Pension Fund lost 4.5 percent on its investments in 2018, according to data reported to the Illinois Department of Insurance Pension Division.

The DOI biennial report detailing the health of each of the pension funds shows the East St Louis Firefighters Pension Fund's had $5,571,916 in investment assets last year. It paid $55,468 in investment expenses and lost $193,087 in investment income.

Pension funds and retirement systems set actuarial assumptions to project returns on investments to cover obligations to pensioners. When they fall short, the difference has to be made up from other sources – primarily from taxpayers and member contributions.

	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Investment assets	$10,799,269	$8,595,156	$6,799,143	$7,238,123	$5,571,916
Investment expenses	$85,684	$79,791	$63,552	$98,801	$55,468
Investment income	$609,470	-$55,580	$427,215	$918,155	-$193,087
Net investment income to assets	4.9	-1.6	5.4	11.3	-4.5
Actuarial assumption	6.8	6.5	6.5	5.5	5.5