Carbon County's retirement fund is holding steady, officials state.

During the monthly meeting of the county retirement board last Thursday, Robert Crampsie, county controller and secretary to the retirement board, announced that the retirement fund portfolio value as of July 31 was $61,564,533, up approximately $211,000 from last month.He also announced that the performance for the first half of the year puts the fund's rate of return at 6.73 percent."We're just a little bit behind the actuarial assumption of 7.5 percent," Crampsie said. "We're hoping the last quarter is the best quarter of the year but that remains to be seen."The Carbon County retirement fund had been on a roller coaster ride over the last few years, but projections from the retirement fund's financial advisors were looking up for 2012.By the end of 2008, the fund's balance was $47,684,152, which represented a negative 24-percent return for the year.In the first two months of 2009, the fund dropped even further, but beginning in March 2009, the county posted its first positive month in the stock market.The fund then performed well, recovering all of the money that was lost during the recession three years ago; and hitting its all-time high of $66.78 million on April 30, 2011 before taking a few more hits and nose-diving at the end of the year.At the end of 2011, the county's retirement portfolio's value hovered just under $60 million, which represented a year-end investment performance rate of return of just .037 percent, well under the annual actuarial assumption of 7.5 percent.Throughout 2012, the fund has performed rather well overall, only posting a loss in the amount of $3.5 million in May.