The council heard a presentation from the vice mayor highlighting that the town's pension portfolio allocation to private real-estate funds underperformed a low-cost REIT index alternative by a substantial margin, and the pension board tabled any town-level action until a fuller committee could consider the analysis.

"If instead of buying these funds, these private funds ... they had bought a Vanguard REIT index fund ... that portion of the portfolio would return 42.4% more," the vice mayor said, describing a six-and-a-half-year analysis of returns and fees. The presenter said the private funds charged a high expense ratio (about 1.1% of assets) and recommended shifting to lower-cost index alternatives.

The vice mayor said the analysis was compelling enough to recommend changing how the pension invests real-estate allocations, but noted only three people attended the recent pension-board meeting and the town appointees were absent. As a result, the board tabled the matter to allow wider participation at the next meeting.

The town attorney said council does not directly hire or fire fund managers; council can make comments or recommendations but ultimate investment management lies with the pension board's governance structure. The vice mayor indicated he would re-circulate his memorandum and requested staff and counsel review it for the pension board's next meeting.