Carbon County's retirement fund took a hit in January but is rebounding this month.

On Thursday, Robert Crampsie, county controller, reported that the retirement portfolio value as of Jan. 31 was $73,353,676, down approximately $1.3 million from the start of the year."January, performancewise, was not a good month," he said, but said February's performance has recovered about all of the losses. "We're probably just about even at this point."Mark Gensheimer, president of C.S. McKee L.P. of Pittsburgh, the county's investment manager, also provided the board with an overview of the portfolio's performance recently. He spoke about lower than expected interest rates, international trading and portfolio allocations.In other matters, Crampsie updated the board on House Bill 239, which deals with the legislation on how counties give cost-of-living increases to retirees.Currently, if the county would decide to give retirees a cost-of-living increase, it would be required to catch up every year that no raise was given, adding to the liability.Previously, Crampsie said cost-of-living raises increase the liabilities and increase the county's annual contribution into the fund.The legislation proposes that counties would be able to give a cost-of-living raise for just one year. The bill was reintroduced this year after the former bill died at the end of the year because no action had been taken on it.Commissioners' Chairman Wayne Nothstein said there is another bill in the Senate dealing with the same issue. That bill is currently in the finance committee.He said it is early in the session and hopefully the House and Senate will be able to come up with something to help the counties.Crampsie said that until then, county officials need to contact legislators to talk about the need for this change.