Former Hartford Treasurer Carmen Sierra received a large number of unusual campaign contributions from a law firm representing an investment management company the same month as she and the city’s Pension Commission voted to invest $10 million with that firm, along with an additional $5 million more a year and a half later, according to a review of the city’s investments, pension expenses, and campaign contributions from Sierra’s 2023 run for treasurer.

Inside Investigator also found ties between nonprofit organizations who count Sierra as an officer or board member, and money management firms who receive millions per year in fees to manage pension investments and are subject to performance reviews to determine if they are meeting return expectations for Hartford’s Municipal Employee Retirement Fund (MERF).

Hartford Parent University (HPU) is a nonprofit for which Sierra is listed as treasurer alongside attorney Cynthia Jennings, who is listed as director, according to the organization’s tax forms. The nonprofit, which was started in 2014 with Lillian Arcinegas as executive director, receives between $200,000 and $500,000 per year, and lists its mission as “mobilize parent power and encourage greater family involvement,” for children to achieve educational success. Sierra was first listed as treasurer for the organization in 2015, according to HPU’s 990 reports.

HPU lists numerous “partners,” which mostly include community nonprofits, municipal government agencies, and philanthropic foundations. Two of those partners are Retirement Plan Advisors (RPA) and Mesirow Financial, two companies with deep ties to the city’s retirement plans. 

RPA is the consultant for the city’s 457 deferred compensation plan; Mesirow Financial managed two real estate funds into which the Pension Commission and former City Treasurer Adam Cloud had invested roughly $14 million over two investments in 2015 and 2021.

Cloud stepped down in 2022, and Sierra, who had served as assistant treasurer, took over as interim treasurer facing an election in November 2023. 

During the June 2023 Pension Commission meeting, the commission entered executive session to discuss possible investment in high-yield fixed-income funds. Following completion of the executive session, meeting minutes indicate that “Secretary Sierra stated that she would be giving her recommendation at the July Pension Commission meeting,” according to meeting minutes.

During that same time, Sierra was running for election in the upcoming November 2023 municipal elections. According to October 2023 campaign filings published by the Hartford City Clerk’s office, Sierra received a total of $12,625 in individual contributions for her campaign, vastly outraising her opponent Matthew Hennessy, who is listed as receiving $425 in contributions.

Ten of those contributions, however, came from lawyers scattered across the country, from Florida to Pennsylvania and New Jersey, making the maximum contribution of $250. Those attorneys all worked for Greenberg Traurig, a massive, multi-billion-dollar international law firm that had been hired to evaluate restructuring options for the city when it faced a possible bankruptcy in 2017. 

The campaign donations, which cumulatively amounted to $2,500 or 19.8 percent of Sierra’s total campaign receipts, came from top employees in the firm, including Ernest Greer, who is now co-president of Greenberg Traurig. Seven of the contributions came within a 24-hour window starting on July 12. No one from the firm donated to any other Hartford municipal candidates during the 2023 election, nor toward Adam Cloud’s election in 2019 or any other city campaign that Inside Investigator could find.

Indeed, according to the State Elections Enforcement Commission, since 2010, employees of Greenberg Traurig have made only ten other donations to various and scattered state political campaigns totaling $2,110 over sixteen years – less money than Sierra received in those few months. 

Greenberg Traurig had been working with Mesirow Financial as an advisor helping to launch their investment funds since 2010. 

Come July, Sierra recommended splitting a $20 million investment evenly between Polen Capital Management and Mesirow Financial Investment Management’s high-yield funds. Quarterly reports show $10 million invested with Mesirow in November 2023. Sierra indicated in meeting minutes that this investment decision was supported by both her staff and the pension consultant NEPC.

Then, in May 2025, Greenberg Traurig announced that the firm advised Mesirow Financial in the closing of Mesirow’s new Real Estate Value Fund V with “$1.245 billion in investor commitments.” 

In a May 27, 2025, press release, “Greenberg Traurig advised Mesirow on all legal aspects of the fund formation and capital raise, drawing on the firm’s deep experience in real estate fund structuring and institutional investment.” 

One of those commitments was Hartford’s pension fund, which invested $5 million in Fund V. The investment was approved by the Pension Commission during their May 30, 2025, meeting and who directed Sierra to make the investment “pending successful contract negotiations.”

Hartford’s pension fund wasn’t the only public pension fund to commit to Mesirow’s new real estate fund; the State of Connecticut also made a $150 million commitment to the fund in May 2025. 

Although investments with outside firms are informed by the city’s pension analysts and voted on by the Pension Commission, on which Sierra served as secretary, neither the campaign contributions nor Mesirow’s support of Hartford Parent University, where she also served as treasurer, were disclosed to the Pension Commission for either investment. 

During that same time frame in July and August 2023, emails provided to Inside Investigator indicate that for roughly ten years, investment management fees had been double-counted.

In August 2023, as analysts from city consultant companies BNY Mellon and NEPC were working out what are known as “flash reports” for MERF and the city’s OPEB fund, Douglas Moseley of NEPC emailed Louis Girkman of BNY Mellon questioning why $15 million in cumulative investment fees were being deducted from the pension fund as an expense when those fees had already been paid on a monthly basis.

Sierra was cc’d on the email, along with city investment analysts. Girkman responded that they were unsure why it was being done that way. 

“Our internal notes for processing these monthly entries have been reviewed and the team has been posting the fee entries for over ten years now,” Girkman wrote in an August 2, 2023, email. “I am unable to find any details as to why we were told to post a cumulative fee amount versus relieving the previous value.”

After providing a list of all seventeen investment managers at the time and their fees, they highlighted those who had essentially been double-counted and readjusted them. The effect was that MERF’s total valuation changed from $1.06 billion to $1.075 billion in the month of June 2023.

It’s not that the investment managers had been paid double; rather, if the emails were correct that this had been done for years, the value of the pension fund had been understated by likely $12 to $15 million every year. 

Regardless, Sierra touted the new figure in a press release that month in August 2023, shortly after the adjustment and ahead of the 2023 municipal election.

“On June 30, 2023, the MERF’s investment portfolio was valued at $1.075 billion, up from $1.020 billion a year earlier. This increase was after the payments of pension benefits of $118.8 million,” Sierra said in the press release. “Based on these results, the MERF’s actuary has estimated that its funded percent shown for the June 30, 2023, GASB report, which is based on the market value of assets, has risen to 66.6% from 63.10% at June 30, 2022.”

Although Inside Investigator forwarded these documents to Sierra along with questions, she resigned before addressing them.

Following Sierra’s resignation, her opponent in the 2023 election for Hartford treasurer, Matthew Hennessy of Tremont Public Advisors, issued a press release calling on the city council to examine the matter, which he referred to as “ghost fees,” and referencing various allegations levied at Sierra in the high-profile resignations of pension commissioners Joshua Gottfried and Shawn Wooden.

“Last month, I encouraged the City Council to hold oversight hearings about potential ‘ghost fees’ for consultants that had been charged against the $1.2 Billion city pension that resulted in an unexplained $15 million adjustment to the value of the pension fund,” Hennessy said. “With the resignation of the Treasurer the Hartford City Council has the opportunity during appointment hearings for the next Treasurer to investigate these troubling allegations and commit to true transparency in the Treasurer’s Office and Pension fund.”

Sierra stepped down from her elected position abruptly in July 2026 amid ongoing tensions between her department and the city and following a breakdown of the Pension Commission during which two former commissioners – former state treasurer Shawn Wooden and Joshua Gottfried – expressed concerns about how Sierra was conducting business.

Expenses charged to MERF by Sierra and others for attendance at conferences and conventions held at luxury hotels have been highlighted in recent news stories, but a closer look at those expenses shows some other lines were crossed between investment managers, nonprofits associated with Sierra, and events she organized and promoted for the community.

Event Sponsorships by Investment Firms

The City of Hartford works with many investment management companies whose fees, as indicated before, typically range between $10 and $15 million per year. In 2025, investment fees cost $12.8 million, according to the city’s pension expenses. For that, however, the city and Pension Commission expect performance and for those investments to grow the value of the fund. 

Investment manager performance is reviewed by the city treasurer, who will then recommend to the Pension Commission whether to continue investing with that company; managers who are underperforming can be removed in favor of better performing prospects.

“On an ongoing basis the City Treasurer and Investment Staff, with assistance from the investment consultant, will review manager performance at least quarterly, conduct formal investment manager reviews annually, or more frequently if necessary, in order to provide recommendations to the Commission regarding manager retention, watch status or termination,” the city’s investment policy states. “Managers can be placed on watch status prior to a recommendation for termination, however, there may be circumstances under which the Commission may elect to terminate a manager without first placing them on the watch list.”

Hartford’s municipal pension fund has been shrinking in recent years, at least on paper, and even when investment returns exceed the expected rate of return, they may be falling well short of passively managed index funds, which would have much lower fees. In 2017, when the city was on the verge of bankruptcy and the pension fund accepted a parcel of land surrounding Batterson Park in lieu of a $5 million payment, the MERF was 74.4 percent funded; by 2024, it was 69.1 percent funded, roughly 13 percent lower than in 2011.

According to the 2024 actuarial report, however, the MERF experienced some wild swings in performance between 2017 and 2024, particularly during the COVID upheaval. The overall effect was that while MERF beat its 6.75 percent rate of return in 2024 with a 9.4 percent return, the three-year, five-year, and ten-year returns were all below 6.75 percent. 

Meanwhile, the performances of passively managed index funds from Vanguard and Fidelity were running 10-year returns of roughly 15 percent. Between 2017 and 2024, Hartford’s investment managers received $86.4 million in fees, according to a review of actuarial reports. 

Underperformance is not a problem that is unique to the city of Hartford. In 2023, researchers from Yale found Connecticut, a state known for its collection of hedge funds and its investment industry, had the second-worst performing pension fund in the country, costing taxpayers billions in taxes and losses. The report spurred action on behalf of Connecticut’s newly elected State Treasurer Erik Russell.

The report also highlighted excessive fees paid to some pension management companies that were not meeting performance expectations, including one particular investment firm, Fairview Capital, which has deep ties to state and Hartford city government through both its investment management contracts and its principals’ philanthropy and service on state boards and commissions.

On May 28, 2026, Fairview sponsored the annual symposium for Latinas in Leadership, a nonprofit based in Essex that lists its mission as creating a “future where Latinas are fully represented in leadership and management, breaking barriers and closing the wage gap with strength and determination–in Connecticut and beyond.”

Sierra is a board member of Latinas in Leadership and, according to pension expenses obtained by Inside Investigator, $750 in 2024 and $900 in 2025 were paid to Latinas in Leadership from the city’s pension fund.

The fact that Fairview would sponsor such an event – along with several other companies – is not indicative of any wrongdoing, nor is it unusual, but it is one of several examples of Sierra’s work as treasurer overlapping with her nonprofit work and her responsibility to review the performance of firms that receive millions in fees from managing pension investments.

Records obtained by Inside Investigator show that investment managers were routing thousands of dollars through Hartford Parent University to support events organized by Sierra.

In September 2023, Sierra held her first Bilingual Financial Literacy Symposium at the Sports and Medical Sciences Academy in Hartford. The event was meant to “empower families with financial expertise that will help them achieve long-sustaining wealth,” and was attended by 134 people, according to the treasurer’s website. The symposium involved numerous teaching sessions and panel discussions by financial experts and mortgage officers. 

The event came following passage of a state law requiring financial literacy classes be taught in high schools and was organized and led by staff from within the treasurer’s office and listed Liberty Bank, Hartford Parent University and the Children’s Museum as “partners.”

When the second Bilingual Financial Literacy Symposium was held in May 2025 “more than 280 community members, including partners, parents and students came together.” The event once again listed its previous year’s sponsors like Hartford Public Schools and Hartford Parent University, but there were many new sponsors listed with financial ties to Hartford’s pension investments.

Of the nineteen sponsors of the event listed at the bottom of the event page, eight were active investment management firms handling tens of millions in pension investments, and one company was the city’s pension consultant. According to documents obtained by Inside Investigator, sponsorship funds for the 2025 event were being routed through Hartford Parent University.

An HPU donation form to support the financial literacy symposium, along with a $10,000 check signed by the CEO of MB Global Partners, an investment firm with $3.1 million in MERF funds under management, was evidently sent to the treasurer’s office instead of HPU. The letter was addressed to Chay Iv, Sierra’s chief administrative officer, and contained a sticky note from MB Global’s Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Lerman that read, “Chay, as discussed. Thank you, Jonathan.”

Other event sponsors like Xponance and LM Capital Group were managing tens of millions in pension funds; Eagle Capital Management was managing nearly $100 million.

Although not listed as a sponsor, Margaret Foley, a client investment manager for the company Walter Scott handling $38 million in MERF funds at the time, was a presenter at the symposium teaching “Investing 101.” 

HPU, where serves as Sierra is treasurer, was essentially acting as the middleman between the money managers and Sierra in her role as Hartford City Treasurer, allowing them to support her event without giving directly. There is no indication that these donations were officially disclosed to the Pension Commission, although sources indicate there was some consternation among commissioners when they saw the roster of speakers and sponsors.

During the first symposium, the only “partner” with financial ties to the city was Voya, which is the contracted administrator for the city’s 457 deferred contribution plan.

While some may see these sponsorships by companies that receive millions per year from the pension fund as giving back to the community from which they profit, others may see it as currying favor with the city treasurer who evaluates their performance. While those events were perhaps beneficial for those who attended, they also increased her political capital.

Lavish Hotels and Dunkin

Media reports have drawn attention to expenses charged by Sierra to the pension fund, including air travel and hotel stays for conventions, which were listed under “conventions/conferences” in the expense reports for MERF, but there were also numerous “business expenses,” mostly for food purchases at restaurants throughout Hartford like Capital Grille, Trumbull Kitchen, and Harvest Wine Bar.

Since 2024, Hartford employees and pensioners have essentially paid for $18,129 worth of dinners and lunches, including $1,010.89 worth of Dunkin purchases, all expensed to MERF, according to spreadsheets of pension fund expenses obtained by Inside Investigator, which lists thousands of dollars in purchases from well-known city pizza places, delis, and bakeries every year. As part of our reporting, we selectively requested receipts and invoices for particular purchases in each year from 2024 to June 2026. 

On May 30, 2025, an 11:20 a.m purchase made from Trumbull Kitchen totaled $498.95, and the receipt states the purchase was for the Pension Commission’s May meeting. Meeting minutes from that date show that both the Pension Commission and OPEB Trust meetings were over by 10 a.m.

Pension Commission members were aware of the food expenses. Not only were they receiving the food, according to the receipts, but the matter had come up during the January 2026 Pension Commission meeting. 

Former Commission Chairman Jonathan Gottfried proposed that, “to follow the City of Hartford’s $50 per person limit,” the Pension Commission’s budget be used to “cover lunch during all future investment manager annual reviews,” according to the meeting minutes. Sierra “confirmed the approved budget would cover the annual performance review lunches.”

Also included in expenses charged to the city’s pension fund are travel and hotel stays for conventions and conferences held at lavish hotels, sometimes in other countries, that were attended by some of the Pension Commission’s analysts and by Sierra. 

Between 2024 and June 2026, the pension fund paid for $47,925 worth of expenses for conventions and conferences, including airline tickets, rental cars, food, and stays at some of the finest hotels. 

That included the Ritz Carlton in Boston where Hartford’s Chief Investment Officer Christopher Koler attended Acadian Asset Management’s annual meeting in September 2025 for $1,292.88, and La Concha in Puerto Rico where investment analyst Rebecca Melley attended the New America Alliance Conference in October 2025 at a cost of $1,487.33. Those charges were part of the $13,095.35 total charged to the pension fund for conferences and conventions that year.

Sierra also attended conventions with her Chief Administrative Officer Chay Iv, including attending the 2024 NAA Conference at the St. Regis in Mexico City for $2,893.97; the 2025 NAA Conference in Puerto Rico where they stayed at the Candado Vanderbilt at a combined cost of $3,545.19, and at the Chatham Bars Inn in Massachusetts for 2024 RFK Compass Flagship Summer Investors Conference at a combined cost of $1,499.66.

Despite the business meeting and conference expenses being a very small portion of the millions in expenses paid out by the pension fund between 2024 and June 2026, the idea of paying for donuts, lunches, and fancy hotels may rub Hartford pensioners – who haven’t received a cost-of-living adjustment in twenty years – the wrong way.

Pension administration expenses for Hartford’s MERF are capped at 1 percent of the fund value and, according to a June 5, 2026, letter to the mayor. Sierra wrote that those administrative expenses were “typically 40% below that limit.” 

During discussion about drafting the MERF budget for the 2025-2026 fiscal year, staff reported total expenditures of $136 million, “$7.2 million under the ordinance allowable budget,” according to meeting minutes.

Although some of the stays to attend conferences at lavish hotels appear excessive, insiders indicate there can be good reasons for a pension analyst or chief investment officer to attend those conferences; they, along with the pension commissioners who typically have experience in investment management, decide which investment vehicles will hopefully yield the best returns. 

The pension fund paying for the chief investment officer for the City of Hartford to attend a conference on investments is, perhaps, better than the alternative in which an investment management company covers the expense, which would give the appearance of gift-giving and impropriety.

In previous comments to news media, Sierra’s attorney argued that Sierra’s trips expensed to the pension fund were approved by the Pension Commission.

Federal Investigation

Sierra abruptly resigned from her position as treasurer in July 2026, citing family concerns. Following her resignation, Sierra returned to the city offices using her key card and ID and was then escorted by police off the premises after employees alerted city administration.

Her departure, however, came following both a breakdown of the former pension commission and allegations that Sierra replaced the Chairman of the city’s Internal Audit Department, Bruce Rubenstein, on the eve of an audit into the Hartford pension fund.

As part of her June 5 letter to Mayor Arunan Arulampalam, Sierra disputed allegations that she had replaced Rubenstein as retribution for pursuing an audit of the treasurer’s office and the MERF. 

The letter included comments by Peter Stevens, who served as Pension Commission chairman in 2023 when Sierra recommended investing $10 million with Mesirow’s high-yield fund while simultaneously receiving campaign contributions from Mesirow’s advisory firm. 

In the letter, Stevens affirmed that investment decisions were “analyzed and vetted and made with rigorous oversight and care,” and said that innuendos to the contrary were “unequivocally invalid.” 

According to the Hartford Courant, a federal grand jury issued subpoenas to the City of Hartford focused largely on Sierra’s P-Card spending and expenditures, along with documents related to a $6 million federal grant that city auditors recently questioned. That federal grant is part of a federal lawsuit against the city by a former employee who alleges she was terminated after “she objected to, refused to facilitate, and reported what she reasonably believed to be unlawful or misleading conduct involving federally funded grant reimbursements and reporting.”

The subpoena also demands a list of all pension fund investment managers and their contracts, according to the Courant, and all expenses charged to MERF. The subpoena also references federal statutes tied to bribery, conspiracy, wire fraud, and money laundering.

Several attempts to interview Sierra’s attorney were not successful. A list of questions submitted to Sierra’s attorney were not returned.

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