Hartford treasurer presents $582,913 general‑fund budget; pension COLA, staffing and investment returns draw council questions

City Treasurer Carmen Sierra presented the Office of the Treasurer’s recommended fiscal 2025–26 general‑fund budget to the Hartford City Council and outlined investment results, staffing needs and outreach programs.

Sierra said the office generated roughly $7.6 million in revenue year to date and reported $264 million in short‑term cash investments as of March 31, 2025. She recommended a general‑fund budget of $582,913, up from the adopted FY2024–25 budget of $549,250, an increase of $33,663 (6.1 percent) that she attributed to contract salary adjustments and a reclassification of an administrative clerk to principal analyst.

The presentation described the treasurer’s responsibilities — investing city pension and trust assets, managing cash and banking relationships and administering deferred‑compensation plans — and listed recent actions and partnerships. Sierra said the office manages several deferred‑compensation plans (identified in the presentation as 401(a), 403(b) and 457 plans) and administers pension benefit payments to “close to 3,000 retirees,” paying about $10 million a month in benefits.

Sierra said the office implemented an electronic payments platform and moved hundreds of vendors to reduce check production and postage costs by about $8,000 a year. “Our office is open,” she told council members, and emphasized outreach including bilingual financial literacy events and school internships.

Why it matters: Council members pressed for clarity on how investment returns affect the general fund and on the authority and timing of any cost‑of‑living adjustments for pensioners. Those items have direct budgetary implications for retirees and the city’s long‑term pension contribution requirements.

Council questions and staff responses

Councilman Mitchell asked whether the city can grant a cost‑of‑living adjustment (COLA) for pensioners and who has authority. Legal counsel Lisa Silvestri answered: “The only way that a cola can be approved, a cost of living adjustment, is for the city council to adopt an ordinance, saying that there shall be a cola when it goes into effect and how much it would be.” Sierra and former/consulting investment staff explained that higher investment returns generally flow to the retirement fund and can reduce future contribution requirements through the actuarial process, but that those effects are smoothed and appear in later years rather than as an immediate transfer to the general fund.

On staffing, council members asked about a vacant senior project manager position in investments that has remained unfilled since August; Sierra said the position is budgeted but not yet posted while a forensic audit is pending and that she will post after the audit is complete.

Other details and initiatives

Sierra listed recent investments (named in the presentation) and said the MRF portfolio value was reported at different points in the slides (examples shown in presentation: approximately $1.17 billion as of April 30, 2024, and approximately $1.113 billion as of June 30, 2024). She listed banks the office uses for overnight and short‑term placement, and described a vendor enrollment campaign that had brought 584 vendors into the electronic payments platform as of March 2, 2025 (Councilman Alex Thomas observed that the enrollment percentage was high and that relatively few vendors remained to enroll).

Sierra also described a $160 million special‑obligation refunding bond transaction closed in May 2025 that she said yields projected savings of $7.2 million over ten fiscal years for taxpayers.

Ending

Sierra invited council members to follow up and offered to host meetings and provide more detailed actuarial and COLA analysis. The presentation proceeded to a council question period that examined staffing allocations, vendor fees for electronic payments and the timing of any pension‑related policy actions.