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The West Virginia Investment Management Board (WVIMB) was created during the 1997 legislative session and is cited as the West
Virginia Investment Management Board Act. The legislative findings of the Act make it clear that the WVIMB was intended to be a professional, apolitical financial management organization dedicated to the interests
of the State's teachers, public employees and workers in general. The Act was intended to give the West Virginia Investment Management Board (WVIMB) "… the authority to develop, implement and maintain an efficient
and modern system for the investment and management of the State's money." In order to accomplish this purpose, the Act further stated that the WVIMB must "… operate as an independent board with its own
full-time staff of financial professionals immune to changing political climates, …." West Virginia Code
§12-6-1(a)(b). The Act also mandates that the assets of the Consolidated Pension Plan, the Defined Benefit Plans for Teachers, Deputy Sheriffs, Public Employees and the Workers Compensation Fund and the Coal Workers' Pneumoconiosis Fund are "declared to be an irrevocable trust, available for no use or purpose other than for the benefit of those public employees…, workers, miners and their beneficiaries…."
West Virginia Code
§12-6-1a(c)(d). The West Virginia Investment Management Board is further "empowered by this Article to act as trustee for an irrevocable trust created by this Article, and to manage and invest other state funds,"
West Virginia Code §12-6-1a(f).
The standard of care mandated by the Statute is that codified in the "Uniform Prudent Investor Act" at
Article 6C of Chapter 44 of the West Virginia Code. The WVIMB is further subject to the following requirements:
(a) Trustees shall discharge their duties with respect to the Consolidated Pension Plan for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits to participants and their beneficiaries; (b)
Trustees shall diversify fund investments so as to minimize the risk of large losses unless, under the circumstances, it is clearly prudent not to do so; (c) Trustees shall defray reasonable expenses of
investing and operating the funds under management; and (d) Trustees shall discharge their duties in accordance with the trust documents and instruments governing the trust fund or other funds under
the management insofar as such documents and instruments are consistent with provisions of this Article. West Virginia Code §12-6-11.
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