In a five-year study of Oregon’s public pension fund, its investments performed better than those of other public pension funds in its peer group, according to an announcement Thursday from the state treasury.

An independent analysis by a Toronto firm compared Oregon’s public pension fund to 17 other “similar-sized” funds, and also found that Oregon’s Public Employee Retirement Fund exceeded the median costs of managing similar funds.

The state paid about $492 million in fees on its $67 billion fund balance last year, according to the treasury.

The issue of “outsourcing” investment expertise to Wall Street is one the Treasury has addressed in recent legislative sessions — it’s thrice introduced legislation to bring more investing in-house, but the effort has failed.

The treasury is now trying to find ways to cut costs associated with its investing that don’t require legislation.

So-called outsourcing is also something of an election issue; while current Treasurer Ted Wheeler is not seeking another term, two candidates vying for the position, Democrat Tobias Read and Republican Jeff Gudman, have expressed their support for cutting investment costs along the lines of what the Investment Modernization Act has proposed.

Independent candidate Chris Telfer has expressed doubts, saying she had yet to see the public sector outperform the private sector.