Lawmakers debate legacy fund disclosure bill; Retirement and Investment Office urges narrower drafting and defers to attorney general on proprietary data

Chairman Hedlund opened a hearing on House Bill 13‑19, which would require a legacy fund disclosure website listing investments and related information.

Representative Bernie Satrim, sponsor, told the House Finance and Tax Committee he brought the bill to increase transparency about the legacy fund’s holdings. "Today, I bring you a bill which asks for transparency on our legacy fund investments," Satrim said. He repeatedly identified concerns about specific past investments and said "we have 3,100,000,000.0 we really don't know about" in commingled funds and contracts that his testimony said limit disclosure.

The committee heard technical testimony from Jody Smith, interim executive director of the Retirement and Investment Office (RIO). Smith said RIO manages roughly $23 billion across 31 client funds and that the legacy fund balance is about $11.5 billion. Smith said a large portion of the legacy fund is held in commingled or pooled investments whose underlying holdings may be treated as proprietary by fund managers. An attorney general opinion has been requested and is pending regarding disclosure of that "secret sauce," Smith said. "If the law requires that we disclose that information, then we want to be prepared to disclose that. If the law says ... we don't believe you need to disclose that information, then that's what we'll adhere to," she told the committee.

Smith said RIO supports a disclosure website in principle and has proposed a less prescriptive draft amendment that would give RIO flexibility to comply with state and federal law and with contract obligations. She estimated a new, robust public website and one dedicated staff member would cost roughly $200,000 (initial estimate) and that some manual data processing would be needed while internal systems are modernized. Smith also said RIO has received open‑records requests concerning the legacy fund and that a clearer public portal could reduce administrative burden.

Committee members asked whether forced disclosure of proprietary holdings could prompt investors to withdraw and reduce returns; Smith said that is a possible consequence. Representative Steiner characterized the bill as a first step to make more information available and questioned whether the State Investment Board might be unable to supply full underlying detail for commingled funds. Smith said RIO can disclose countries of investment and many other summary data, but whether more granular proprietary data must be disclosed depends on the pending AG opinion.

No formal committee vote was recorded on the bill during the hearing; the Retirement and Investment Office and the sponsor said they would continue to work on amended language.