The committee handling about $750 million in Hanford workers' 401(k) retirement accounts will not immediately cut its ties with Putnam Investments, a mutual fund company that faces fraud allegations from securities regulators.

"We don't want to be too hasty," said Mike Hradec, director of benefits accounting for the Hanford Site Savings Plans, which holds the retirement investments of about 11,500 Hanford employees and retirees.

Putnam provides recordkeeping for the Hanford plans, and about $500 million of the plans' assets are invested in Putnam mutual funds, he said.

The practice of buying and selling mutual fund shares quickly to profit from market fluctuations is officially prohibited by Putnam. It can reduce the value of fund shares held by long-term investors.

Hradec said a few Hanford plan participants have sought to withdraw their investments from Putnam mutual funds.

But the committee overseeing them decided at a Friday meeting not to jettison the firm's services right away, he said.

One reason was that the committee didn't "want to jump from one ship that has serious structural damage to another that might be worse," he said. In the past few weeks, news has come to light of securities regulators investigating a number of mutual fund companies, including Janus Capital Group, Strong Mutual Funds and Prudential Financial.

Dan McNeela, a fund analyst with the investment advisory group Morningstar, said his company has held off from advising clients to dump Putnam funds for those very reasons.

"We saw Putnam taking some fairly firm steps to address the problems they face," he said. Still, Morningstar now is advising investors not to put any more money into the company's funds.

"The longer-term view of the situation is that the company should work to get their employees more options to invest in," he said. "There's no reason to limit themselves to one or two mutual fund companies."

Hradec said the Hanford plans committee will stick to a process it began this summer to choose a company to handle recordkeeping and fund management services Putnam now provides. About 11 companies, including Putnam, have sought to provide those services, and the committee expects to choose one by Dec. 31, he said.

Ironically, individuals with the Hanford plans were engaging in market timing as late as the spring of 2002, he said. About 30 individuals caught doing it were stopped by August 2002, and rules were put in place barring short-term trades.

The plans handle the retirement funds for former and current workers with companies including Fluor Hanford Inc., CH2M Hill Hanford Group, Bechtel Hanford Inc., Energy Northwest and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.