When it comes to investment advice, you don't always get what you pay for. And when it comes to state pensions, it's not even clear how much those funds' advisors are getting paid.
That's the takeaway from a recent analysis of more than 70 large pension funds in all 50 states for fiscal 2014 by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Unreported investment fees in 2014 were estimated at more than $4 billion, mostly payments to private equity managers, in addition to the $10 billion in reported investment expenses that year, the report shows.