July 18, 2000



Richard C. Atkinson
President of the University of California
1111 Franklin Street, 12th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607-5200



Dear President Atkinson:

An article by Lance Williams in the San Francisco Examiner on Sunday, July 16, 2000 raised concerns about the UC pension fund. In particular, there are concerns that relate to the hiringwithout biddingof Wilshire Associates, a consulting firm that seems to recommend drastic deviations from the current investment strategy. There are also questions about Regent Gerald Parsky who was instrumental in hiring Wilshire and persuaded the majority of regents to follow this company's recommendations against the better judgment of the current Treasurer, Patricia Small.

In view of the above concerns, our organization, the Society of Professional Scientists and Engineers, would like to obtain answers to the questions below. Our members and, indeed, all UC participants in the pension fund, deserve straightforward answers.

  1. Why must an investment strategy that has been successful for years be changed drastically and in a hurry? If there is no problem, why fix it?
  2. What precisely is wrong with the current investment strategy and what would replace it? Are the proposed changes written down and available to us?
  3. Why are the investment changes that are proposed by Wilshire so readily accepted by the Regents? Before changing a successful strategy, wouldn't it be prudent to obtain a second opinion?
  4. How would Wilshire Associates be compensated?
  5. Why are so many of the meetings regarding this issue held behind closed doors?

I have every hope that our concerns will be dispelled by timely and informative answers to these questions. I thank you for making every effort to ensure that there are sufficient checks and balances in place to guarantee that the UC pension fund is protected from hasty and financially unsound investments.

Sincerely yours,

/s/

Patrick Weidhaas
President, SPSE


PW:cmr
Enclosure: SPSE Brochure

 

cc: William T. Bagley
Cruz Bustamante
Lawrence Coleman
Ward Connerly
Michael Cowan
John Davies
Gray Davis
Delaine Eastin
Justin Fong
Robert M. Hertzberg		 Judith L. Hopkinson
Odessa Johnson
S. Sue Johnson
Meredith J. Khachigian
Mark Kohn Joanne Kozberg
Sherry L. Lansing
Howard H. Leach
David S. Lee
Irene Miura		 Velma Montoya
John J. Moores
Robert C. Morrison
S. Stephen Nakashima
Gerald L. Parsky
Peter Preuss
Tom Sayles
Jeffrey A. Seymour
Patricia Small

P.O. Box 1066, Livermore, CA 94551-1066 * Voice (510) 449-4846 * Fax (510) 449-4851
SPSE Web site--http://www.spse.org * E-mail--spse@spse.org
(Please note: Our area code is now 925.)

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