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State Investment Board tells Ways and Means it manages roughly $230 billion and uses ESG tools while citing fiduciary limits

Washington State Senate Ways and Means Committee · January 29, 2026
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Washington State Investment Board officials told the Senate Ways and Means Committee that SIB manages about $230 billion, primarily in pension funds, relies heavily on passive index vehicles to control fees, and integrates ESG considerations through proxy voting and stewardship while warning that imposed divestment mandates could raise costs.

David Schumacher and James Aber of the State Investment Board told the Washington Senate Ways and Means Committee on Jan. 29 that the board manages roughly $230,000,000,000 in public funds and has a statutory duty to “establish investment policies and procedures designed exclusively to maximize returns at a prudent level of risk.” Schumacher described the portfolio mix — public and private equity, fixed income, real estate, tangible assets and “innovation” investments — and noted the commingled trust fund holds about $185,000,000,000 of that total.

Schumacher said the board structure includes 15 members (two legislators, the state treasurer, agency directors and representatives of public-employee pension systems) plus…

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