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VRS chief renamed to post
Tuesday, April 20, 1999
BY JEFF E. SCHAPIRO
Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
The Republican activist who guided the sale of the state pension fund's most controversial holding won reappointment yesterday as chairman of the Virginia Retirement System.
Edwin T. Burton III of Earlysville has headed the nine-member oversight board of the $33 billion VRS since he was named to the post in 1997 by his one-time next-door neighbor, Gov. George Allen.
In announcing the reappointment of Burton and another VRS trustee, economist and law professor D. Bruce Johnsen of Fairfax, Gov. Jim Gilmore yesterday said the pair would help ensure that public employees are "suitably compensated."
The selections come as the Virginia legislature gets ready to study Burton's pet cause: optional self-managed pensions for VRS members. Currently, pensions are fixed by law and financed by investment decisions made by the VRS board and staff.
Burton, an investor and economics professor at the University of Virginia, managed in 1996 the nearly $600 million sale of RF&P Corp., a railroad-turned-real estate company, to a New York investment bank.
RF&P, whose marquee asset is the Potomac Yard, an undeveloped railroad switching facility between Arlington and Alexandria, was a source of political and legal turmoil for the VRS. The takeover ultimately led to strengthened oversight of the fund by the General Assembly.
The VRS provides monthly pension checks for about 90,000 retired public employees. The nation's 32nd largest retirement fund, the VRS is supported with contributions from about 285,000 active workers and their state and local government employers.