Authority_October_2020

34 October 2020 - The Authority The year was 1981: a year of signifi- cant firsts – NASA launched the first space shuttle mission; Sandra Day O’Connor was appointed as the first woman on the United States Supreme Court; MTV broadcast the first music video; IBM introduced MS-DOS to the world; and the first Mario Brothers video games rolled into arcades. Another memorable first happened that year in the world of Pennsylvania local governments. In May of 1981, supported by their member associ- ations, two of Pennsylvania’s local governments banded together to create the Pennsylvania Local Government Investment Trust (PLGIT or “the Trust”). As we prepare to celebrate PLGIT’s 40th anniversary in 2021, we want- ed to remind our members of the grassroots efforts to create PLGIT, the Trust’s growth over time, and our plans for the future. A revolutionary approach PLGIT has become so well estab- lished, many of our members may not recognize how visionary the Trust was in 1981. Back then, Pennsylvania’s local governments and schools had few options for investing and man- aging available cash. Municipalities were forced to contend with inflexible investment products, high fees for cash management products, and dif- ferent service levels based on the size of the investment balance they could maintain. In response, a handful of pioneering local governments came together, determined to find a better way to invest. The statutes enabling intergov- ernmental cooperation enabled them to create a trust designed to meet their particular needs. In fact, PLGIT was one of the first local government investment pools of its kind in the entire United States. PLGIT Celebrates 40 Years by John Molloy PLGIT Program Manager