PFI Investment Process - (3) Hours Credit

The objectives of public investing incorporate the high fiduciary responsibility of a public investor and focus on the protection of principal and the priority of liquidity to meet cash needs as they occur, but it also requires attention to assuring that these important assets perform and produce a reasonable yield for the entity to incrementally supplement tax dollars.  This course is built on those objectives and will give the student three (3) hours of CPE credit upon successful completion. 
 

This Public Funds Investment course is designed to educate public officials in the basics of investing in order to assure that they do have controls and procedures in place to protect funds.  The course is also designed to assist public officials to build an investment program that will serve the public entity by building a strong foundation, which is flexible enough to change with changing conditions internally, as well as in the market.

There is a basic process to all investing.  The foundation points of that process are explained and illustrated through this course so that public funds are safe and so that public investors can benefit from the markets available to them in order to gain incremental income.

The process of investing is:
·        determine cash flow needs
·        determine risk tolerance levels
·        authorized and appropriate securities for investment purposes
·        create a policy framework of risk parameters
·        develop an overall strategy
·        establish procedures and controls
·        understand market forces influencing your decision
·        structure a portfolio
·        monitor and report on portfolio to assure compliance with objective

Each of these building blocks has been covered in this training.  The training examines and explains investment controls, security risks, strategy risks, market risks, the need for diversification of investment portfolio, and compliance elements of state law.    The course should assist the public investor to recognize risks and to build structures and procedures to manage those risks.  Working from cash flow analysis and policy development to key elements of the most often utilized securities, the investor should be able to fashion a safe and productive process for their public funds.