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Senior intern presents investment benchmarking method for district portfolio
Summary
A Libertyville High School senior, Zach Seiler, presented an internship project that recommends using average US Treasury marketable securities yields and CPI‑U as benchmarks for evaluating the district investment portfolio and proposed including those benchmarks in monthly investment reporting.
A Libertyville High School senior presented an internship project to the Facilities & Finance Committee proposing benchmarks for evaluating the district’s investment portfolio and a plan to include those benchmarks in monthly reports.
Zach Seiler, a student in the district’s new workplace internship class, said he examined the district’s investment mix and considered possible benchmarks. He recommended pairing the Consumer Price Index for Urban Consumers (CPI‑U), to measure retained purchasing power, with average yields on U.S. Treasury marketable securities as a performance benchmark. Seiler said those two measures better reflect the district’s low‑risk, liquidity‑focused investment goals than common alternatives such as the federal funds rate or the S&P 500.
Seiler explained that US Treasury marketable securities are broadly traded, free of default risk and serve as a baseline for many fixed‑income instruments, while CPI‑U helps report real returns after inflation. He told the committee his work used publicly available monthly data (Treasury.gov and Bureau of Labor Statistics) and suggested the district adopt the pair of benchmarks for ongoing investment reporting. District finance staff signaled support for the approach and said the metrics can be integrated into monthly operations.
