BAD TRIP - City pension board approves trips to St. Thomas, Dubai during fiscal crisis

BAD TRIP - City pension board approves trips to St. Thomas, Dubai during fiscal crisis
"Heavy stock market losses and calls for increased taxpayer contributions to fund city employee pensions have not stopped some board members of the Baltimore Employees' Retirement System from taking trips to the Middle East, a swank Caribbean resort, and tropical locales like San Paulo, Brazil to attend “investment” conferences.
Minutes of ERS board meetings reviewed by Investigative Voice show that the body that manages retirement funds for 10,000 city employees approved a travel itinerary in 2007 and 2008 that would make Marco Polo blush.

Among the trips paid for with taxpayer-provided retirement funds was an April 2008 trip to St. Thomas, Virgin Islands by Comptroller Joan Pratt, approved by the board last February, an excursion to San Palo, Brazil in the summer of 2007 by Executive Director Roselyn Spencer approved by the board last year, and most recently a trip by Pratt and Spencer to Dubai approved by the board in the fall of 2008."