General Employee Pension Board - Regular Meeting

Present trustee Jonathan Hernandez currently not present trustee McCoy here trust the longman currently not present trustee Williamson here and trustee door set currently not present

Do we have quorum?

Yes.

Thank you. May I then call for an approval of minutes for the regular attention meeting held February 3rd, 2025.

So moved. I second. I second that.

All in favor? Aye. It's time for public comments.

I don't know. My husband, Eric Olson, has worked for the city of Miami Shores for 26 years and recently passed away unexpectedly. He's worked really hard for the city. I'm looking forward to his pension that he's worked so hard for. But as it stands now, His family is not entitled to an annuity. And I was hoping that the pension board could be recommended to change the ordinance for him and allow us to receive his pension benefits and the annuity.

Mrs. Solson, if I may, we're...

Indeed, I'm very sorry. Eric had served the village. For those of you who are here without familiar, Eric Olson was our recreation manager or pool manager who passed recently. This is Eric's widow, and I guess she's here just to to speak on this. I know she has spoken with our HR director at length. And so if the board would allow, just maybe to allow our HR manager to chime in. We are probably, Ms. Olsen, so distraught that she can't.

Thank you.

Good morning. Yeah, let's take my cloud human resources director. So it's been the cells and stated Eric passed last month. He worked for the village 26 years going on to his 27th year. I can tell you that from day one open my arrival. He had a countdown on reaching his goal which was to retire from this village. Excited, I can tell you that not only was he excited about that, that excitement he carried over through the majority of the people that surrounded him. I can tell you that he encouraged all his lifeguards to participate in our 457 plan so that they could supplement their pension upon retirement from here. I got the chills because the Wednesday before he went to the hospital, he asked me if he needed to complete the full month, you know, looking at his retirement date, or if we do the calculations based on the day off. And we were just engaging in, you know, retirement planning. And it's, he fell short. He fell short because currently, the way that the ordinance is written, You could retire pretty much at any age if you complete 30 years of service. He was 26 going on 27. And he didn't have the age of 62. I can tell you that Ms. Olsen's here, obviously, to request your support, to bring forward a recommendation into the village council to allow him to retire. I can tell you that you can do it. Obviously, you can do it with an ordinance change, which required two readings. There, I have spoken with Mr. Levinson about this topic, and we identified four ways THAT THE FOUR WAYS IN WHICH WE CAN ACHIEVE THAT SHOW THE BOARD RECOMMEND THIS TO COUNCIL AND SHOW COUNCIL APPROVE IT. WHEN ADAM IS HERE, HE CAN SPEAK ABOUT THE FOUR WAYS. I CAN TELL YOU THAT FROM AN HR PERSPECTIVE, I HAVE WORKED AT ANOTHER MUNICIPALITY, AS YOU GUYS KNOW, FOR 17 YEARS, AND I CAN TELL YOU THAT THERE ARE TIMES WHEN AS AN INSTITUTION, WE HAVE TO MAKE CHANGES. And I don't think her ask, you know, it's for everybody. She's asking for the husband in particular. So when you look at expenses, because obviously as a trustee and as a counsel, you're going to inquire on what is this gonna cost us, right? That's always, it's your responsibility to also look at the cost. I can tell you that if you're looking at Eric's case, look at Eric's case individually for now. Don't focus on, we're not here asking you for everybody else. We're asking you here to revisit his scenario and allow him to retire. And there are ways that you can do it. And I don't know if you want me to bring them up or if Adam could explain them. I've discussed them at length. In my prior institution, something similar was done. Not for someone's death, actually for an employee that we were negotiating an exit package and the individual said, well, I will only leave if you allow me to do this. And when I called in to Adam to find out can we do this like that setting, it was made so unique that the qualifiers were only made for that individual. So it was an ordinance change that allow you to retire if you were hired on X date and, you know, X number of years of service. That means specific that the impact of the finance impact of the whole procedure was that individual and not the entire population. So we can talk about other changes in the future when we address any other future changes as a whole, but right now the ask is for you to reconsider allowing Eric Olson's retirement so that his wife and his son could... take advantage of his hard labor here. He gave us 26 years, okay? I'm sure that everyone in this community, one way or another, were impacted by his services, whether they taught your kids how to swim or provided a CPR course for our staff or for the community, and the simple fact that the Wednesday before he went into the hospital, We were planning his retirement. I just beg you on behalf of Melissa's family to reconsider an alternative option to allow him to retire. And again, if you want me to give you the four options that Adam and I discussed, I'd be happy to. But you have Adam here, and he can also explain them.

I think, thank you, Yami. I think probably I'd like to hear from council. I'll just tell you that I know that this is a particularly hard time for many of us because I can tell you that three of the four of us sitting on this podium were there not discussing this matter or dealing with this matter at the time, but we were there at Eric's end on that Sunday afternoon, so. We share the souls of Spain.

He was a hero, and he left us as a hero. We actually attended his hero walk. He was an organ donor, so even past his last minutes, he was still helping the community. I believe all his organs were received by somebody else except his heart. So God knows, I don't know how many organs are there. Right now I'm still in shock as well. But he was able to leave us a hero by donating all his organs. So that tells you, speaks highly of who he was as an individual and how caring he was. And again, the fact that he was almost there. I think that you can consider getting him there. Allow him to cross that line. Thank you.

So condolences from our family. And I did speak to Ms. Olsen before the meeting. And what I mentioned was that what is my job as attorney? And my job as attorney is to provide options to the board. So I don't take positions today. But I'm happy to summarize what other boards have done and to give perspective so the board can decide what the board wants to do or not do. And I think Yami did an excellent job of teeing it up. So as you heard me say before, plans, meaning municipal pension plans, are all over the map. And this is a plan design question. And the design we have does not currently pay a benefit because he died prior to hitting early or normal retirement age. All the plan currently allows is a refund of contributions with interest. In other words, from the actuary standpoint, it's an actuarial gain to the plan because we've saved to pay a future benefit, but he didn't reach the finish line. He was close to the finish line, but he didn't reach the finish line. So all we currently will be paying, unless an amendment is made, is the member's money back with interest. Does everybody follow that? And I can give you the provision of the plan, which is the death benefit provision. So the question is, in light of the conversation with the HR director, And she brings her perspective, having worked in other cities and seeing some of these other plans with other locations. So her view is, can we amend the death benefit section to capture the scenario that we're faced with today? And the answer is, the board can't do it. The board can make recommendations. The board can cost it out. But ultimately, the folks who are the elected officials have to decide if that's something they're interested in putting in place. And the actuary will be able to cost it out. So I'm going to walk you through three scenarios. And then there's really a permutation of each of them. So Yami referred to it as four. There are multiple versions. But to keep it simple, we'll do three with permutations. So we'll describe it as four. But there are various ways it could be done or not done. So what's the first option? And the first option is, and I'll describe it as the most expensive option. And the most expensive option would be to pay a death benefit starting today. So pay the benefit based upon the time he already had, right? So if I'm hearing correctly, 26 years of service. And again, defined benefit plans, it's a function of, you know, what is the goal? And if the goal is to immediately start paying a benefit now, that would be the most expensive option. So for someone who is vested, And we can have it say someone who has at least 25 years of service because he had 26 years of service. Someone with 25 or more years of service who was vested, the beneficiary could begin an immediate benefit. So let's call that an immediate annuity, amend the death benefit to provide an immediate annuity if someone has 25 or more years of service. Option number two is less expensive, so it wouldn't be an immediate benefit. It would wait until age 62, because that's when he would have had to wait for normal retirement anyway. So that's a deferred. Option number two is a deferred instead of an immediate annuity. Everybody understand? I'm sorry?

Or 30 years, whichever came first.

So normal retirement is age 62 invested or 30 years of service. So on option number two, which is the deferred or the delayed benefit, it would commence at the earlier of age 62 or when you would have had 30 years of service. four years from now. So it's less expensive than option number one because there would be a wait for those four years until he would have hit. So we're making believe that he was collecting a regular benefit in the future. I guess we'll pay it to the beneficiary. Does everybody understand options one and option two?

And on option two, just like you said for that where you put a clarifier in there for $25, Just like in option one, you put a clarifier for 25 years. Is there something, same thing for, again, for what Yami said, for specific as opposed to us doing this broad for the death benefit? Is there an option two, something similar to that?

Excellent question. And that really gets to what I'm going to refer to as option four. So if you want to keep the cost as low as possible, you can have it apply only in this circumstance. And that's what Yami was basically touching on. The way you would have it apply only in this circumstance, and if someone in the future dies under similar circumstances, you'd have to go through this process again. But if you were to limit the cost, you could say that anyone hired between X date and Y date. So you cast a net which captures exclusively one person. So you're not going to use a name, but by crafting the ordinance, you can have it capture only this situation. So we could very narrowly draw it based upon date of hire. And he would be the only person that would fall under the amendment. So that way there would be no cost of this happening to anyone else in the future. Everybody follow that? And I'm referring to that as number four, which is the, you know, the length or the breadth of the death benefit. So that'll be option number four. So what was option number three, which I haven't summarized for you? Okay.

I was wondering how we moved from two to four. So I kind of got bummy.

Right, but the question was, does that clause be part of option two? Or you're just saying you'll get there and then do the summation?

So these are all different permutations. But option number four is really a discussion of how narrow or how broad. In other words, the coverage question. So option number four deals with coverage. It's the dial on how broad or how narrow do you want coverage to be. That's option number four. And then option number three is not ideal because, for reasons you'll understand, option number three makes sense in bigger cities. So what is option number three? Option number three is donated time. So option number three in the FRS, I can get into details. In the city of Miami, I can give examples. And option number three applies in cities where there are big unions and lots of employees. where the employees, instead of the village paying the cost, the employees can step up and say, if there's a union poll, for example, if everybody donates a month of their accumulated leave or their accumulated vacation time, then that can get you to the four years of service that's needed to cross over the finish line. So that's an approach that some cities have used, donated time. The problem here is, option number three, there aren't enough employees, unless they were to donate, substantial amounts of individual employee time. So that's why option number three. But option number three gives you a path, meaning that the city could donate time and then members could also donate some time. So that's just giving you the ways of using donated time have people cross over the finish line. Everybody follow that? So let me just repeat the options. Option number one is an immediate annuity. Option number two is a deferred annuity until the member would theoretically have hit normal retirement. Option number three is some version of donated time, donated time by the city, donated time by the members. And the fourth option is just talking about the parameters that you put around options one, two, or three. Does that all make sense so far? The final thing I want to point out, and we could spend hours talking about this with actuaries, is in many other cities, and I'd have to go city by city, we wouldn't have been in this situation. Because in other cities, if you're already vested, you will collect some sort of a benefit. But in our plan, we don't pay the benefit. It's not enough to be vested. You have to be vested and eligible for a normal or early retirement benefit. Everybody follow that? So that's why in our plan, there is a gain under these circumstances because we've been paying, meaning the village pays its member contribution, the village pays every year its contributions, and then there are the investment gains over 26 years of service, and all that we will pay out unless an amendment is made is the employee contributions with interest.

So, I mean, under our plan, just so that everyone, particularly me, is that you vest a 10, But then there are other conditions. The other conditions are 30 years before you can draw a full pension. Or eligibility for the age. Or the age, 62.

Right. And it says eligibility for early or normal retirement.

Yes.

And he was not yet eligible for early retirement either because he wasn't old enough for early retirement.

He was one year short of early being eligible for 55. Right.

One other question for the village itself and this plan was last time the village looked at that that it was so that we only had either date or I know that we were discussing those 8 options was that brought up when the committee was looking or they were tasked only doing one part of the pension at that point in time or are we looking at the whole. The whole pension plan.

So another excellent question. And offhand, I do not know exactly what the committee looked at. The committee may have looked at improvements for the existing employees in terms of recruitment and retention. And they may not have looked at the death benefit issue. And this gets to the larger point, which is there are no right answers when it comes to pensions. What is the goal? And if there was an interest in doing a broader look, another committee, if you will, could take a look at other areas where there may be situations where a family is not fully protected. And as I've emphasized, and I won't keep repeating it, it's a plan design issue. And your question is, when was the last time the aggregate plan design was looked at? And I don't know the answer.

Okay, thank you.

You mentioned, excuse me, you mentioned that there were differences in costs. Obviously, if you simply looked at the rules, if I understand it correctly, you would simply return the contribution and interest. That's, you just set rules to rules and that's what you do. The next one would be to, as you said, I'll call that the status quo.

That's what the plan currently is.

Status quo, okay. What are the costs

differences for the other the other ones do we know that so and this gets into what is the board interested in doing today or not doing today and depending upon which of any of those options you're interested in you could you could say today and you know options better than I do but you could say let's have the actuary cost them and And then you can say, let's bring it back to a board meeting. And then once we know the costs, then you could move forward at a board meeting. Or you could say today that let's have the actuary do the cost, and then the village will make a decision with HR. So the board does not have to be involved at a second meeting to review it. It's entirely up to you on the trajectory of how you move forward. So you could have it brought back to your board, or you could simply say that, allow the actuary to study it, give me the authorization to draft whichever version the village is interested in potentially that we're looking at, or let the elected officials see the cost of all of the options, and they can pick and choose what they want to do. So it's, again, entirely up to you on a path forward. In other words, how much control do you want to take, and how much input do you want to have into that, or do you want to give the options to the village?

Yeah, my question is this. So you said we can choose one of these options, have the actor give us the information, and then, without coming back to this board, go to the council. My personal preference would be to look at the options, decide on one or two of these, I think just based upon the recent history of this board will be to bring it back here so there are no misgivings or misunderstandings that when this board votes on something, we know this board votes on something and it goes to the council. That would be my personal preference.

I agree. The board that I, you know, the council that I sit on is always looking for whichever the advisory board is for their expertise on this. And I'd prefer it to come back here and then go to the council. Yes. So there's no, the messaging is correct. Yes. And then let them digest the options that are have from the village's standpoint as a council and let this advisory board make recommendations.

Adam, excuse me. If I might ask a question, would it not be better, whatever better is, to do this by a waiver or exception instead of trying to amend the ordinance? Because ordinance amendment is obviously a more complex process and time-consuming.

So I like the way you're thinking. And you're thinking like a lawyer, right? That's the legal term, waiving. The answer is, unfortunately, as much as that would simplify things for everybody and that would be the easiest way to do it, FROM A LEGAL PERSPECTIVE, THE BOARD IS NOT ALLOWED TO WAVE. WE HAVE TO FOLLOW WHAT THE ORDINANCE SAYS. AND THAT WOULD BE THE MOST SIMPLE, THAT'S THE MOST DIRECT WAY, BUT FOR VARIOUS REASONS, AND WE CAN GET INTO THE DETAILS, THAT IS NOT AN OPTION. IT HAS TO BE A PLANNED AMENDMENT.

THEN THERE ARE REALLY ONLY TWO ALTERNATIVES, WHICH YOU CALLED A AND B, WHICH HAVE SOMEWHAT DIFFERENT COSTS. Certainly, we'd like the actuary to tell us what those are, and I'm wondering if just from an expedition point of view, I mean, at the end of the day, the village council is going to have to make that decision on a policy basis. Maybe it's better to give them the numbers and let them decide. I don't know. I mean, bringing it back here is fine, but I'm just wondering from a speed point of view. Might help the family.

I do understand that, but the thing that for the ones that I sit on, if there's not enough information on that, they have a tendency of looking back at the board. I don't want to get into the thing that, because we only meet once a quarter. If that goes in front of the council and gets kicked back, you're still, the time is in essence here, so... You know, if my colleagues were here and that would be easier for me to make a decision, but how I'm just basing this on past. Past experience with Mike, I know it's a new board, but not by many members and if the information isn't. crystal clear of the explanation to I understand that it's you know you're gonna look at it as just a it's more so than just a financial decision this is this is what the village has to do and I think they do look to the board and the expertise of this for recommendation.

Then I think the correct thing is to ask GSK to do an analysis of A and B and bring it back here for a recommendation. Is that correct? When's our next meeting?

It's not until end of July, I believe, but would you be able to do a special meeting just to address that? I can tell you that For a retirement calculation, it probably will take her two weeks or so. If we give her the data quickly, she could do this in two, three weeks. But to have the family wait until July for this point, to then put it, then we're not in session at council in August. So now you're pushing them to have to wait until September. And you know, September and then October for first reading, then November for second reading. Then it's like a year has gone by. And this family is in need of an answer. Of course, yes. And obviously the financial resources.

I think we could do a special meeting by Zoom and just that one issue, I'd be fine, yeah. Get the two numbers and come back.

And just to be clear, we're asking for the two options, which will be to allow him to retire immediately or defer it to when he would have had the 30 years of service or 62, whichever one came sooner, just to make sure that that's what they ask.

My trick of the waiver doesn't work, so you're right. Right. I think I think trustee.

Yeah, I would like to Just clarify one thing You're on the second one. It says 30 years or age 62 He's been here 26 years. There's can't we waive the age 62 and make it on his 30th anniversary or pay him as of now? Instead cuz he was committed to be here. I feel I for the full 30 years and then draw his pension. So I think we should pay it sooner. So in other words, at his 30th anniversary, instead of age 62, because 30 comes first, because 30 comes first. And, you know, he's been here that many years. He was committed to stay here for his pension that we should honor that.

Right.

And then change for a, uh, ADMITMENT TO THE COUNCIL CAN DO IT AS A DEATH BENEFIT. YOU KNOW, IF SOMEBODY HAS BEEN HERE 25 YEARS AND PASSES AWAY, THAT IT WOULD BE PAID ON THEIR 30TH YEAR INSTEAD OF AGE 62.

YEAH, BUT I THINK THAT WOULD BE VERY, I THINK FOR, I'M SORRY, I THINK IT'S WONDERFUL, BUT THE MOMENT YOU BULK EVERYBODY IN THIS EQUATION, THE COST WILL GET HIGHER.

YOU'RE NOT BULKING, YOU'RE ONLY BULKING IF SOMEBODY PASSES AWAY

I mean, I don't think we have to be that narrow, Jim, in saying 30 years because we're saying I think what I heard before was age 62 or 30 years or whichever comes first.

Whichever comes first, correct.

It still covers that. Okay, so he could draw it and she could draw it.

So what I'm understanding is we will, if there's a motion made, direct the actuary to cost the first two options, the immediate annuity and the deferred annuity. And the related issue is, how broad do you want it to be? Do you want it to only apply in this scenario, or do you want it to apply as a permanent change to the plan going forward? And maybe have the actuary cost that both.

Yeah. Is there any extra additional cost for any of these ones that we put on for the actuary? Or once you book it for doing this exercise, it's the same cost?

I'm sorry, I don't have the answer to that.

No, it's probably just the fee. But if we're doing that also, there was also a discussion of him taking early retirement too, meaning hitting... The 55. Right. So, I mean, if you're doing all options and it's specific for the family, then... I think just all of it, and then we'll make a decision as a village. But I just don't want anything left out that somebody then comes back and says something else.

Yeah.

So as the board is compiling in its mind the potential motion, the motion would at the current point cover the two scenarios immediate as opposed to a deferred and to give the actuary flexibility or to give the village flexibility. So one version of the ordinance, so if you want to call four options or four permutations. So one version would only cover this scenario, based upon the individual we're talking about, the other more expansive version of the ordinance would cover anybody who died tomorrow under similar circumstances. So I understand what I think the wishes of the board are, but I would need a motion authorizing me to reach out to the actuary and authorize the study.

You want to do the motion?

Can I make a motion? I think that's just a friendly amendment. Yes. Yes.

Yes. I think both. Okay. Yeah. It's just a friendly amendment. Yeah. Motion. And second. You have direction. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Thank you. Another quick observation. This is another wonderful opportunity for trustees at conferences because these are the sort of planned design questions. that often get discussed at conferences. So I know trustees are busy and life doesn't give people that much free time, but in the event trustees in the future are able to avail themselves of some of the opportunities, it's a good topic for, you can't talk about it with each other, by the way, because this is now the Sunshine Law, but this is the sort of thing where you can kick the tires with colleagues at other cities and see what the, what's the word I'll use for it, what survey the field at other locations.

I think the annual meeting comes up next month. So there are various conferences.

The FPPTA has the two schools, the Florida Public Pension Trustees Association. They also have their annual conference, and there's the Division of Retirement, which does another school. That's mainly for police and fire, but you can go to that also. So our administrator, I'm sure, would be happy to provide you the dates for the balance of the year for conferences. We'd love that. Thank you everybody and again condolences. Thank you very much.

Okay, we're there's some warrants that we have here and to discuss the ratification are there any discussions on this. We read a ratifying pay all.

I second that.

All in favor. Aye. Any new business. Yes.

I'd like to, you'll remember that the Village Council, a couple of meetings ago, approved that some employees are able to choose between staying on the existing defined benefit plan and moving to a defined contribution plan, a 401A, which is a municipal type of plan. At that point, we did not have any information on the cost of this. The Council went ahead anyway, so I move that. that we do at least a retrospective analysis of what these costs are, and what I would like to see in that would be a list of the positions and titles that would be eligible for such moving to the 401 . If there are current incumbents, that those people be listed, current salaries, and then projected slots and salaries over the next five years, so we have some idea, multiply that by 10%, projected cost, and then the savings by the fact that they would not be going into the defined benefit plan. At least in a retrospective basis, I think we owe it to ourselves to look at those numbers.

Is that something for this pension board to do, or is that something for the manager's office?

I think it's more cost effective if the manager does it. but I guess GRS could do it also.

There's a question for the attorney on that, on something like that.

If I may, the investment consultant had a question on that. Will current members in the defined benefit plan be entitled and allowed to roll over their balances into the defined contribution plan. If that's the case, we would need an actuarial estimate of what the money flow coming out of the DB plan is going to be so that we can prepare accordingly.

Right now, there's only one.

I don't think there's anyone. Is this a belly? No, she hasn't stated. I think HR would be best to discuss that.

I'm sorry I stepped out a little bit, but if I'm understanding you want to know who is in this defined contribution plan right now.

No, it would be a cost though that because if if how it is it's any new hire and then we're trying to pick project out what how many positions in Miami in the village qualify for this for new employment. But the question from the stories for Mister West is that who right now for what the council passes an ordinance is eligible for the switch.

Okay, so I can answer that question. So only four employees who are not a charter officer?

That's lovely. I really require that we see this in writing so we have the numbers really in front of us.

I think we're trying to have a discussion so that she is aware what is being asked.

There's only four employees who met the criteria that were hired after October 1 who were directors or executive management, only four. Of the four, three, as of Friday, elected to participate on the defined contribution plan. Yolanda and Adam have been copied on the acknowledgements of that. The fourth eligible member has until April 30th to decide whether to go into the defined contribution or the defined benefit plan. As far as the one charter officer that is currently in the defined benefit plan, we did not manage that. When we presented the change process and the request to counsel for the DC, we made a statement that we will not although the person could go into the DC that they would have to negotiate it because charter officers are under their employment agreement and she at any time could come to the council and request such adjustment at the time that she wants to do that. But right now it was only four employees who met the criteria of which three has started a defined contribution because they were not participating in the defined benefit. Remember, the clause, anyone who would have hired you had to wait a whole year and all that, right? So there was no contribution into the defined benefit of the three people, zero contribution, and they started contributing to the defined contribution within the month.

I'm just going to say that's the current status. I really would like this to be looked at over a five-year period. Which new employees, which new slots might be involved? Again, what are the costs for the defined contribution versus a defined benefit?

If I could answer that as well. As it stands right now, looking at our organizational chart, the only eligibility will be, as we stated, directors. The only director position that's not filled today as we speak is the planning and zoning position. So you're looking at the possibility of one. And the... Turn around it's I don't know I haven't been here long enough to determine what that would be if someone leaves or comes but right now the only vacancy and a director level is the planning and zoning planning planning zoning and resiliency director position So you're looking at a one right now Again in writing please let's just have the real numbers in writing ejected over a five-year period

I just want to be I just want to clear since she bomb miss miss McClellan in my dual role here as chairperson is as a manager course. She she takes certain amount of direction from me. I wanted to know What's objective what why are we doing this I mean we've already voted the the the board the council's already both voted on this and I just want to be clear not be resistant or not being very hard on what you what it is that you're asking I just want to be crystal clear because when this meeting is over I'd be on the other end of this ask.

Discipline, simply discipline. I've been asking for a year for data, projected data in writing, haven't gotten it.

May I just say something with regards to that since we know we have an opportunity to speak on that. You had made requests of me You did not make that request of me. You made that request of me, I'm not sure, as a resident or as a member of this board. Does it make any difference? Yes, it does. If you make it as a member of this board, it has to be something that this board has approved for me to go ahead with it. So you can't unilaterally, Trustee, ask for the village manager to do something in your capacity without getting the majority board vote from this board.

What I said was proposed as a motion. What I just said was a motion. It was a motion.

Yes. Okay. So it has to be seconded. Do we want to do it? I have no problems with it. Understand, I'm prefacing, I preface my conversation by saying I just want to be aware what the ask is, what the intention is, based on the fact that when this meeting is over, I am on the other end of giving material. And I operate in total transparency as not only as your chairperson, but as your village manager. And so for the sake of that, I'll second it.

Thank you.

And then the only question I have to you, this is an internal is what you want. We don't have to pay for an outside.

No, no. If the village manager can do it, yes, of course.

Yeah. I do my utmost best. So there's a motion that's been seconded. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. All right, thank you so much. I think we're still on a new business. There were some other things I wanted to talk about here. I'm going to ask, Yam, if you may, I'm going to ask you just to, there's some things that have come up internally that I'd really like to discuss here.

A COUPLE OF ITEMS. DURING THE LAST BOARD MEETING, I SPOKE DURING THE PUBLIC MEETING SECTION, REQUESTING THAT THIS BOARD extends the courtesy of training and informing the members. I requested presentations to be held semi-annually by our labor attorney to staff. I think you have a responsibility to your members to understand how this plan works. When they can retire, all about the pension, and I think it's important that you do that. There is a huge disconnect. I'm speaking to you as your HR director now. When we hire, you should be able to give every member a summary plan description, and they should be able to have all this in front of them, especially if they're not participating immediately. I think you have an obligation to your members, and I would ask that you actually make a motion, because that didn't happen last time, to allow Adam to do semi-annual presentations. An hour an hour and a half. That's what it will take him of All they need to know about the pension plan Remember they're contributing as well and they need to know when they can retire when can they enter the job? We just made changes, you know, let the voice be your voice through your counsel not not my voice So that's one Just with with that will the village also work on our packet for that new employee I So I got to tell you, not speaking, criticizing the process, but my first ask when I arrived here was for that. And it turns out that Yolanda provided me the plan summary for our general employees. And then you know it was in draft format and what we can give you know we were required to provide updates on our S. P. D. S. So my fact on the Florida statue you supposed to do that by annually right and we should be able to and I'm always looking from an HR perspective to make sure that everyone got one it should be acknowledged that you received you know. And this is not a document that gets updated by Yolanda or myself. This is an actual board document that all the members need to receive. So since my involvement with Yolanda and asking, I was able to have it electronically, but not everyone has a village email, okay? The board should be able to provide me with 50 copies of that summary plan description or 20 copies or whatever or 10 copies, whatever. If you're not going to change them until two years, print 50 that I can hand deliver, provide during my onboarding service to staff, you know?

But I think for the process for this, I think it just has to be a recommendation from this board that the council actually budgets money for the printing of that.

And thank you for that. Because the HR budget for office supplies is $250. So now you tell me how I'm going to print. You're laughing, but it's true.

How I'm going to print. No, but budget season is coming up. And then to organize this. And the village hadn't had an HR position before. For a while, so I mean we're trying but in this budget season, then I don't think it's necessarily this board But it's actually the council and budgeting for the HR department But I if if HR is looking for direction from this I'm looking for most importantly the presentation Yes that day the members receive an actual presentation But that cost of it, associate, it's not, we don't have a line item in the budget for this pension board to do the presentation. We'll have to ask for it under HR's budget moving forward. It's an extra cost for bringing the attorney in.

I see it as however you're paying Adam today to attend is how you're going to pay him for this two hours of presentation. It's a... No, it's...

I mean, as far as our budget would go, in budget season, we'll figure it out. But I could ask him. I don't know if they do it as... Yeah. If it's the scope of their work and then if this is a part of the scope of the work that we have this contract and I'm fine with you and with it but if it's something else that we need to as council budget money for we have to do it. I mean just because of our warrant or their right exactly because it's going to come here for us to approve so.

So, Adam Levinson, Klaasner, Huffman, Jensen, Levinson again so I won't say I have a conflict on this, but just be aware, obviously, we're talking about paying attorneys. So let me give you the broad perspective. So different cities do things differently. And the most common way for cities that do want to have the attorney present to the member sometimes it's the administrator that will do it sometimes it's the the actuary in HR so different cities do it differently but over time we're seeing more and more cities want to do what HR is recommending which is have some sort of once a year twice a year opportunity for members to show up sometimes you give them pizza or you You do it during lunch or you do it during two different shifts, however different cities want to do it. But the idea is it's their pension, and often employees don't understand what's being covered and what's not being covered. So increasingly we're seeing more and more cities do this. So how is my office paid? The answer is we're paid on an hourly basis. So if we were to attend twice a year for an hour or however long it would be, and there's a little bit of time to prepare, and usually I put together a PowerPoint presentation. So I refer to this as the normal cost of the plan. So when you get a bill from the attorney, if there's a lawsuit or any other issues, if I draft an ordinance, you get billed for that by the hourly fee. And that's part of the cost of the plan for the year. That's not something the village has to separately budget for. That's the operating cost of the plan. same thing here with making copies of the SPD if the board were to authorize it it doesn't need to separately be budgeted by the city that's an operating cost of the plan which comes out of the pension and the actuary sort of spreads that out as they anticipate there's a certain amount of normal cost every year so the standard work that the attorney does and you know the cost of providing SPDs etc the summary plan description that could be normal cost and which does not have to be separately budgeted for by the village. Now, you could, if you want, have the village separately budgeted. Instead of having the pension pay for the cost of the printing, you can have the village pay for it, and it's just a lot easier to do it through the pension as operating normal cost.

That's how it's done where I came from. That's right. Do I proceed? You guys are smiling. I love that.

Please proceed.

So that was one item.

Thank you.

The next item I wanted to talk to you guys, it's about the records and the whole communication with our TPA. As your HR director, I am concerned, and actually the minutes reflect my partial statement from last month. I am concerned when I am called by the TPA to check the records, to provide her the records. of who the beneficiary is on file. I think it's, I read the service agreement with the third party, and I then asked Yolanda, and apparently they never really got the records from the city is what I understood, but the records from the village, I'm sorry, not city, have not been kept as they should have. I'll give you an example. I am not accustomed to receiving a call from Yolanda and saying, look in such and such file and tell me who their beneficiary is. I am not accustomed to not having them have that record. At the end of the day, that function of payment and beneficiary should be kept and updated by the third party. Well, to my surprise, when I go pull out the records, then the records are there, and either they're not signed, you know, I don't know if it's the latest version, I don't know when was the latest version, so I'm gonna suggest something to this board, and could take it or leave it. I think you need to get every single member of this board to fill out a new beneficiary election form, okay? Brand new one. Forget about what we have or what we don't have. I think it's an easy ask. You can coordinate it through my office. You give them a deadline and you say, please complete this forms, whatever forms you need, Yolanda, for your purpose of computing data, okay? Give them two weeks to complete, I'll send them to you, pick them up, however you want. But now you have the record, okay? Because I feel uncomfortable, and the minutes reflect, I feel uncomfortable when you're paying things and you're doing things and you're relying on me telling you that that is the record. I have not been here more than seven months. And when something is incomplete, I don't trust it. Okay? It shows lack on us. So my ask for the purpose here is to actually have everyone fill out whatever forms you need to have and now you have them and you start from scratch. Of course, you can only achieve that over the active. We would still have to worry about the inactive. But I think it gets you closer to having records.

Are you asking for ours or for the employees?

Employees. Every employee.

But that doesn't add up to the city? We can't go ask the employees. No, no.

There is a pension form that is given to employees at hire by the city. Right. But that record is your record. It's a Retirement Board record. So I am asking for all those retirement board records to be recompleted by all the employees that are participating in the plan so that Jolanda now can have her records, records that she didn't get before, okay?

Quick question for that is, Since there's, I mean, for employees and stuff like that, there's open enrollment for look and updating of benefits. Is this something that you're asking separate from like that November, if we do it in October, November, would you like this separate for them so they participate and know this is something else and not get confused with?

No, this will be something else. It would be a standalone. Later today, tomorrow, everyone please complete this form.

And you just want, you want paper form or you want also electronic? Electronic.

Well, however, Yolanda, and this is for the board. This is for her to have her files because she doesn't have files right now.

No, but I mean just for ease of an accuracy.

Oh, yeah. I'm going to e-blast it to those that have e-mails. They can reply back to me on e-mail or they can hand deliver. It doesn't matter. I will collect them and I will make sure that we transmit them to Yolanda's firm.

Right, but my question, I guess, is do you want a paper record of this, or do you want the electronic slash paper, or which way do we want it?

Well, the problem is we don't have a, I mean, I read that we're supposed to have a website through the TPA, but I've been here seven months, I haven't, I don't know where it is or whether it exists, so it has to be paper.

So it has to be, this one has to be paper.

Unless if they have a different system to get the data, I don't know.

We typically get paper, hard copy from all the pension plans that we administer.

Yeah, and then they can build their files.

For the employees to do, right? For the employees to do. Right, but they're looking for direction from us. So she just wants us to say, okay?

Well, I'm going somewhere. I'm going somewhere with it. But Jim, it has to be done in this forum? since it involves the pension.

The pension. It's not a village form. It's a retirement plan of general employees retirement plan. It comes on your letterhead. It's your form. We just facilitate the distribution of the form.

All right.

But what I'm going somewhere where they see by me you guys are missing Hope you're not but the whole point is we have I have given Yolanda in my tenure my short tenure here information that it's not signed alright, so I can put my Beneficial whomever John Mary Harry whatever and that is not signed and that that it's not legal That's not legal and then you're paying benefits on a form that you have to accept as is. And unfortunately, to have to wait until November or October for open enrollment, how many people are gonna have a need? I mean, unfortunately, I don't have that magic ball to know who will have the need, next person to need Yolanda's information. But that is happening. In addition, another factor that you need to cease as a practice, and should cease, I'm not telling you what to do, but you should reconsider. You should have all these benefit elections when employees retire ratified here at this board. Well, guess what? We're paying benefits. You get a summary, like you will pay a warrant, and the actual election of that employee who elected a life annuity 10-year life certain or whatever. It's not signed as it came to this board by the chair of this board. It needs to come to you guys. You guys should vote like how you voted on the warrant, and there's a record that it was approved at XYZ pension board meeting, and that is how you pay. Well, that hasn't been the case, and that's a problem again. Because it doesn't reflect it on the minutes. If it doesn't come to this board, how do you know it happened? And if it's not signed, how do you know it happened?

I do agree. I think I hear, did you want to chime in on that?

Well, I mean, that wouldn't be a problem. We are giving a summary, but it wouldn't be. So what you're saying, bring the actual election forms?

IT SHOULD BE ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE BOARD, BY THE CHAIR, YOU KNOW, THAT YOU APPROVE THE ELECTION. I ALWAYS SEE US, AND I'M SORRY, I HAPPEN TO BE A CERTIFIED PUBLIC PENSION TRUSTEE AND I WENT TO TOO MANY SCHOOLS LIKE ADAM AND HE WAS POINTING AND LOOKING AT ME, AM I GOING TO CONFERENCE IN JUNE? You know when those forms come to you if someone you could stop them if someone is making an outrageous Selection and educate them, you know, that's the purpose of this role here, right? You know, you can't just Get it lost in the system. Especially when you're asking me for records and they're not signed I feel uncomfortable in providing you something that is not signed.

Are you telling me that you need a handwritten signed physical document and you can't do it with an e-sign?

No, no. So the third-party administrator provides the employees a summary sheet with what their elections could be for retirement. Life annuity, $100. I don't know. 10-year on life thereafter, $110, right? Just visualize the five or six options that the board offers as a payment option. That form has a section that says, has information on who the beneficiary is, has information of how the, comes with a cover letter from GRS, how the number was computed. It has a line as it stands that says pension board share. It's not used. So why did you put it on the form if you're not going to request a signature?

Well, but my question is a little more fundamental than that. I mean, you know, we see $100 million deals done on eSign, and you're talking about a piece of paper for a pension. I mean, are there not systems that would allow this to be, you know, done in the cloud and do it that way? And, you know, I don't quite understand why we're talking about paper forms at this point in time.

I'm saying paper because that's the practice, but you can go as electronic as you want. I'm asking for the signature. However you get the signature, whether hard copy in the cloud or not in the cloud is what I'm asking.

But what you're saying is right now you're trying to do a paper audit. Am I missing something?

The signature, that's what's missing. That's what's missing.

I do about one e-sign a day, so.

Yeah, that's what's happening. The papers are not being signed. And in addition, and I'm sorry, this is what.

I think what he's just trying to do is what I said before. Like if we're going to go through this exercise and try to get at least 96% that you'll have these signatures, what's the best practice for the village to do? I understand that. the administrator would like a paper record but I mean we're what we're trying to get here is accuracy on documentation so I think that's the bottom line the bottom line and again like you said there in our general employee fund a or the general employees I think it's a hundred and forty something people is what we're trying to get signatures from this or like well there isn't there you're also doing the people that that we're paying out or we're not going after, the ones that are receiving benefits.

The only people that, the only signature I'm requesting here is when you give, for them to complete their beneficiary, that's one. But when I'm referring to the signature, I'm speaking of the document that's titled, when you enter the drop or you're actually retiring, There is a form that gets filled out where the employee selects, and there's a section that says Board of Trustees by, and it requires a signature. Your form currently requires that signature.

And it's not being utilized. So what you're saying is that the circle or that loop needs to be closed.

It needs to be closed so that the form is 100% complete. And furthermore, I think we're doing a disservice to our members when we give them the form and it says your contributions are X and they're bulked and your salary is X and they're bulked. I am not familiar with that, not used to that. When you give an employee to make an election on their retirement, they are to see that if you're looking at the top three of the last five, show them what their pensionable earnings were and don't bulk them because when you bulk them as a whole and say you contributed 100,000 or 150,000 if there's an error I can't tell by that lump But if you if you have that in year one my last three I made 50,000 the next year I should have had 54,000 because I got a four percent cola and the next year I got another three percent cola I want to see that that was that but don't tell me that I My earnings were $150,000 because then you're not giving them an opportunity to confirm that the data that you're giving them where you're drawing their numbers.

If I may, Yami, I think I hear the administrators are speaking over here. I'd just like for them to speak and then there's just one thing I'd love to say just to close this out.

Well, a couple things. First of all, that form is actually coming from your actuary. It's not a form that we produce. It's a form that the actuary produced. The contribution issue, just to remind everybody, that was brought up by Ms. Keeley. She felt that the employees needed to look at what their total contribution was. It really doesn't factor into the calculation of the benefit. The only thing that factors into the calculation of the benefit is the earnings history. So the contribution issue, which is a problem because there's been multiple payroll systems here over the last 30 years, very difficult to get the total contribution on any particular member. As far as going with DocuSign, that is obviously a possibility. That's not a difficult thing to do. We don't care. Our problem has been, again, because there's been multiple people that have been in this HR position, the records are not always complete, and it is really a problem when people are retiring. I mean, I have to be honest, it is a real problem.

Thank you for agreeing.

Yeah.

But, I mean, as far as the form, that's something that your actuary is producing them easy enough to modify. And again, the contributions, that was a special request maybe two years ago. But as far as going to Eastline, that isn't an issue.

Okay, so thank you. What I'm going to request is that we give Yami, I hate calling you Yami. I know that's your name. I know you're like a Brazilian soccer star.

I wish you would have been basketball and not soccer, but I get that.

But Yami and the administrators get together, sort this whole thing out, because if we're... If we're being real to ourselves, we have not had things go as smooth. Things have been haphazard in the past. So if we could just get together, shore things up, come into the 21st century, and if needs be, you can come back and just give a report on what it is that you've done just to make sure that things are proper. Thank you for that.

I'm just asking for improvement on our process. I think for both it will be easier.

Are we all in agreement on that? Yes, 100%.

Thanks. May I?

Yes, final say.

It'll be quick. So, Yami, what I can do is if you'd like to, I can schedule a meeting, come here, meet with you personally, go over all your requests, discuss them with the actuary in terms of the forms, the information that's been supplied to the members, et cetera, and go from there?

Lovely, thank you so much.

That's awesome. Thanks. While we're on your things, though, I just wanted to talk a little bit. It's almost like in the vein of where things that are being discussed now, and I just took some notes because I've been speaking with the finance, especially when it came time for what are their functions and what is the function of the administrator. The functions of the administrators laid out in the agreement is very, very clear. However, I think, I don't know if it's out of past practice or whatever, some things have been conferred onto the finance department when really it lies within the auspices of the administrator. And for example, I'm just going to tell you this. So, if we look at the agreement in Section 4, it says the services include to maintain statistical data for the trustees, the fund auditor, actually include invest in, benefit accrual, compensation, eligibility, history of participants when such are needed or required. And the village has been providing the salary histories and contributions histories based on various schedule to TPA. So we just wanted to say that going forward, effective this fiscal year, that the village discontinues this practice and that the village finance department cannot and shall not be doing any accounting schedules for the plan. I don't think it should. The third party administrator should. I'm assisting the preparation and filing of all necessary government reports it says that but the village has been requested to provide information that was previously provided duplicated efforts. Those are some of the things that we're going through right now spreadsheets contain an employee data going forward will provide new only new hires and termination think of a responsibility to keep. Your records and your data not the thing as seen in In J is to develop, establish, and control proper procedures for the recording of all contribution, benefit payments, and disbursements of the fund. This is a comment from finance. I haven't worked with them. The pension administrator is not maintaining the records of contributions. The village has provided contributions starting with October 1st, 2024 to current and will continue to provide monthly contributions, reports for the TPA to maintain the records. Upon request of employee's retirement or termination, the TPA shall produce a deduction history record for the village to verify against their records. The thing is that some things just need to be more streamlined as to who does what. I know we had their past administration or past practices have been that a lot of this load is on finance and it shouldn't be for whatever reason I think there needs to be a clear difference in terms of who does what because that makes makes for more transparency. So in the vein of what I just said, previously when Yami spoke, I'd love for finance and outside departments along with HR just to get together to shore up some of these things as far as the functions are, who does what based upon what the agreements are. So I just wanted to bring that up to the board.

A question, Mr. Manager. Who does the payroll?

Who does payroll? Yeah. We do. The finance department does it.

Why would you not use a service in ADP or payroll or something like that? Because they then have an automatic feed. ADP? I just don't know.

That's... That's not something that I have checked into in my chair. We have gone ahead. I've gone ahead with how things were done previously. I don't see that there's an issue with that right now. But, I mean, that really lies as an administrative function with me.

Just on a corporate basis, corporations typically use a third party in an ADP because of direct reliability issues.

I know of three municipalities that I've worked with that they've always been. They do it internally? Internally, yes. I don't know what your history has been internal.

Yeah.

Okay, I think we are on to Mr. West to talk to us about the rough air in Rocky Road.

I'm afraid I can't offer any insights whatsoever on any directions or crystal ball on tariffs here. Flip a coin. That being said, that is the topic du jour, right? And it's creating enormous uncertainty in the marketplace. I think one of the, a wonderful source of leading economic information is to look at what's happening in the marine trade industry. Right now, what they call blank shippings, which are ships going back with empty containers, specifically to China, those represent 40%. Oh, I'm sorry, yeah. Those represent 40% now of the bookings. There are future cancellations coming. So obviously the concern now has shifted more towards are we going to see a COVID-like supply shock as a result of the lack of resolution at this point of tariffs. So again, you know, the greatest minds, greatest economists out there are the first ones to tell you, you know, we can't tell you what's going to happen. We have no idea. There's no definitive game plan out there. Chair Powell has come out, and we have confirmation that he can't be terminated. His position can't be terminated by the Trump administration, which gave the market a nice relief rally as President Trump backed off on that. And also, we had a nice relief rally when the president backed off on suggesting he might soften his stance on China. So needless to say, the market volatility has been very extreme. And I think through all of our readings and research, it is very apparent that the webs run very deep, and there are far-reaching implications. for this year. So we'll see how everything's worked out. I was just doing a calculation. I finished it just in time to see where we are through April to date. Obviously, we're here to talk about the March report. And with the recent rebound and the way the asset allocation is set up in here, we're actually in pretty good shape. I mean, the wealth destruction has been pretty phenomenal, but we have had a recovery. And I don't want to paint a rosy picture here because I still fall off on a basic financial concept that most people tend to overlook. Not people in this room, you're acutely aware, but I'll mention it anyway. And that's that if you have a dollar and you lose 50%, you now have 50 cents to work with, right? So the market actually has to be up 100% just to get your dollar value back to where you were before. So the point of this is negative volatility like this is very bad. It is very corrosive, especially to pension, well, all of our asset values, but especially pension asset values as we're trying to reach a – a funding level and a target rate of return. So let me go through, I mean, obviously the information in the report is moot for March 31st, but let me just take you through where we were and give you a back of the envelope update. So if you go to page 16, We were actually faring fairly well through March, right? And if you look at the fiscal year to date number, this was the first shoe drop, right? So we are only looking at a total plan decline of minus 0.61%, a little over a half a percent. Now, the reason we're holding in there and continue to hold in well is we are pretty well diversified in our domestic equity portfolio. So, believe it or not, if you look down at the Fidelity Large Cap Growth Index Fund, remember we terminated our active growth manager and threw in the towel and went into the index fund. Growth stocks driven by the magnificent seven tech stocks really were hit hard, right? And this is the universe that those stocks fall in. So growth stocks were responsible for the brunt of the decline, down 9.96% with that index. However, running, that's left court, right? Running right court, we also have an active value manager and value stocks were actually up, and the Boston Equity team was up more than the index. They were up almost 3%, so 2.93%. So that's not a complete offset, but it's a very nice offset as value stocks have caught a bit here. A lot of people forget, and some people didn't even realize, if you go back to the tech wreck, right, that was a grand wipeout of wealth. Value stocks actually had positive returns During that period of time. So, you know the history is there is some history here and We're seeing this diversification by style workout for us here also The mid-cap index fund that we're in, the Vanguard S&P mid-cap index declined 5.8%. Again, not as much as the large-cap index. So diversification was helpful. Keeping the diversification theme going forward here, International equities through March were actually positive. As investors were moving off of U.S. stocks, international equities have performed very well. Keep in mind as U.S. investors, one of the big, big events that happened during the quarter was the devaluation of the dollar. I think a couple meetings ago we were talking about, you know, catching a plane to Europe, right, because we could buy one euro for close to, you know, $1.02. And now the euro itself has, the dollar has depreciated, so now I think today's print has a Euro at about $1.15. So that's a significant depreciation. But as an investor here on U.S. soil buying stocks overseas, that's appreciation for us, right? So that in addition that the local foreign markets were delivering positive returns. So check off another nice piece of diversification in international equity finally helping us out here. And then last but not least, of course, we get into fixed income. During this period of stress, we had a modest rally in the high-quality bond market, and that's where we are with integrity fixed income. So they were up 3%. for the quarter. So their fiscal year to date with interest rates moving all over the place ended up being flat. So the critical number of fiscal year to date through March were down 0.61%. Now I did a back of the envelope calculation. I pulled values from Friday's market close. As you're all aware, the worst part of the correction, we saw a 20% correction. Really nasty inequities. We have since rallied back to about a 10% correction. And by my calculation, based on the closing values as of Friday, the system is only down another 1.75%. Let's round it to 2%. in the month of April. Tracking, you know, we're not closed yet, but through Friday's close, the plan is only down 2%. And again, diversification kicking in here. So our total fiscal year-to-date number is going to be showing a negative, probably a negative 2.6% decline or so. So amidst all the carnage, all the hype, and all the hoopla, The way the portfolio is put together, we're maneuvering through this pretty well as long as equity markets hold up here.

Last year, what was the total gain on it? Where were we at?

Yeah, great question. So to answer that question.

Yeah, the minus 2.6 instead of doing year-to-date, you could sit there and do year-to-year, year-over-year from March to March. How are we doing?

Yeah, so that fiscal year-to-date number, that would be on your plan year, yeah. So let's answer your question, and I'm going to back that up with some actual numbers here. If you go back to page 18. So last year, top line there, last year was a pretty phenomenal year, right? We did 25.2%. And actually, if you look at the previous 10 fiscal year endings, you can see that the plan far exceeded the actuarial required rate of return, and every year but three. And those misses were during pretty dramatic bear market declines, right? September of 22. And then we remember in 2019, we were looking at staring at a face of pretty big market correction because of recession fears uh... so we were positive that year uh... but that was a mess and then of course the other one was uh... back in uh... two thousand fourteen fifteen uh... those also pretty nasty uh... uh... market correction period so uh... you know looking at the smooth return basis obviously we're not going to be realizing all of the gains. I think we're on a five year smooth for this program. So, you know, we're still running off the returns from 22, which obviously hit everybody. And we'll be realizing only 20% of that 25.24% gain from last year.

There was never adjustment to the five-year curve for the COVID, was there? We were just averaging that in even with that big hit. Correct.

Correct. Correct. So it was impactful, no question. It changes the curve. But it is smooth, and that's why the smoothing is there, to recognize the volatility. And in turn, that gives us the ability, I think, to be a little more aggressive than we might be otherwise if we were subject to year-to-year only, and that's how the village's contribution is determined. That still brings in too much volatility from the investment contribution here. and the five-year smooth allows us to be a little more reasonable and be a little bit more aggressive in our investment structure. Does that address the question? Yeah. Okay. So looking at the asset allocation, let's go back to page 12. Looking at the asset allocation as of March 31st. And again, very little change here. You know, we had previously completed some rebalancings and taken some money off the table. So the green triangle is pretty close to the, you know, the targets. And these are the long-term targets we set in our investment policy. So I have no action recommendations today. You know, we don't know whether it is zig or zag in here. uh so always the best course of action is to stay with your policy stay with your long-term investment plan we will get through this we get through everything for the last hundred years and uh just just as as fiduciaries and trustees um you know stay on the established program and we should uh we'll get through this

that's i wish i could say more but uh there's no opportunity for any clairvoyance here uh yeah and just a question just as just understanding how the people that are managing the money the like on on days that are so swing trade in in inter they're just set up more

for the broad thing it's not they're not trying to actively sit there and catch a lightning in a bottle or catch a falling knife either way correct correct and that's the case on multiple levels so our level of interaction here with the with the asset allocation to your point very long-term oriented very broad level and focus then bring it down a notch now we get to the front line managers that are in the trenches however They are managing, to address your question directly, they are managing with long-term investment gains in mind, and they're not day traders, and they're certainly not letting noise influence investment strategies that are very fundamentally driven and have proven to be successful through market turmoil over time, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. So any questions on the report? All right, I have a handout, and I apologize for the late send out on this, but I was trying to work with my management team. It's my time in the tank to respectfully request your consideration of an adjustment to our fee. I tried to lay everything out here in great detail. And so let me just take you through it, take you through our thoughts on this, right? So we go back to the Bogdan Group, the origins of the Bogdan Group. and is one of the founding partners of that firm. We prided ourselves on independence, total transparency, and we charge hard dollar fees only to our clients. We don't receive any revenue share from mutual funds. We don't charge you a basis point fee like all the other investment service providers, including the custodian do. We're a hard dollar fee. And I think our initial contract was right around the financial crisis. I think it was 2008, and then subsequently we came to you for an adjustment request in 2014, and you granted that request. So what I'm showing here, I'm sorry, 16, if you look at the bottom table there and you see the legacy fee contract, We were originally at $20,000 in 10-1-16 and then our adjusted fee at the time allowed for a 3% COLA and that brings our current fee as of April 28 of 25 to $25,335. So again, transparent, hard dollar fee. That's all we bill and our clients. What we're proposing here is an annual retainer fee of $30,000. This is a one-time adjustment. We're respectfully requesting consideration of, and this gets us on a basis point equivalent. The original fee, if you look at the percentage fees as a percentage of assets highlighted there, the current fee is roughly 12 basis points, and that's pretending we're charging you a percent of total assets, right? So your equity manager is charging you 50 basis points, right? We're charging you a 12 basis point equivalent. That's what that hard dollar fee would look like. So this would then move that fee as a percentage, proposed fee as a percentage to 14 basis points. A couple of thoughts behind it. It's been a long time. And, you know, it's been a privilege to work with you and the, our costs have escalated way beyond the 3%. And I think, unfortunately, our future costs that we're looking at is, again, a resumption of an inflation rate well above and beyond the COLA. So we're respectfully requesting a one-time adjustment. This actually gets your fee equivalent to the PDE fee, police department fee. and um The other issue on the table here from a cost standpoint, when we went into the original agreement, we were negotiating in good faith that the meetings would take place simultaneously, same time. So from a cost perspective, we can share with PD the associated expenses. So PD has now moved their meetings, obviously separately, different time, has moved off of that joint meeting schedule so we've got to go in and look at that and you know treat both you and PD as you know independent accounts which you are but we've lost that uh we've lost that economies of scale um if you will so uh there is some you know pencil sharpening rationality behind this and uh uh we hope you think that this um this fee adjustment uh is reasonable so let me let me just pause there for for any questions on it and of course we're going to give you a three-year guarantee um on this fee so you won't hear from me again you know for for three years and maybe after that three years, you know, I won't, you haven't heard from me since 2016. So, yeah, my senior management is putting the heat on to, you know, try and get our revenues up. Also, another point, which has really moved to you all, but our minimum fee for client consulting now is right around $34,000. That's what we're looking, we're trying to manage our margins and that's where the new line is being drawn. But obviously we're gonna respect historical relationships that we have here. Let me stop there for discussion.

May I just ask, How much does the police pay now? What's the retainer?

Police, I left that in my bag. I believe the police is at 30.

Thank you. 30 also.

So police is at 27. And I'm also going to be requesting a fee increase. Obviously, it's going to be less for police so that they will also be at the 30.

Percentage-wise, it's less, but they're asking for the same fee. You're asking for the same. So it's not really based on the size of the pension. It's based on the work being done for. It's not actually, you're not doing it based on the pension fund. You're doing it based on work.

Right.

All right.

That's my only question. Any discussions on this?

I move we table it until the next meeting. Yeah, I second that. And Dave, as I was saying, it's fine. But I really, I think just as a matter of policy, we need to get information more than, you know, a few days before. Particularly, it came in on the weekend and I was terribly busy, so I didn't have a chance to read it very carefully. So, table to the next one, but I'll be fine then.

I agree. I think I'm hearing you saying the trustee that we could just lend it a little bit more due diligence based upon the time that we got it.

Exactly. I just think we need a little time to read these things. I mean, we got the GRS report in June. I mean, at the day of the meeting, I mean, you just can't read the stuff that quickly. You got to take some time and look at them.

Thank you.

And then just one question with it is where it says proposed fee is effective date, October 1st, 2024. So it's backward.

Oh.

Just we'll have to cover last year?

Well, let's negotiate that right now. Let's make that effective date of approval.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah. All right. But then, yeah, this, yeah, just if I have a little bit more time to do it, just like you said, so then we could discuss this in, it'd be July, right? Is that when we're meeting next? I think it's next, yeah.

Again, it sounds fine to me, but I just, you know, I just, you know, got a little too time to look at it.

Yep.

I'm right there with you. Thank you.

Okay. And then as part of that due diligence, obviously, you know, we're tasked with making sure that we are keeping your costs competitive and your fees down. So I'll just leave you with, again, in the interest of full transparency here. Bear with me. I have the page turned over here. If you reference page 46, so right now your investment management fees for the fund are at 25 basis points. And those are the investment manager fees and the various products that you're paying. And then our fee at the proposed 14 basis points, that would put you under a half a percent for total expenses for the system. So I think your auditor and your actuary will confirm with their client base that these are still in the bottom quartile for fees. And they might be a good reference source if you want to do additional due diligence on it. And that's my report.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The chair just ran to the restroom, so. Okay. We'll just take a two-minute break. We're talking about nano-trading.

I mean,

There's already enough that the SEC, I would think, has enough that, especially on the options buying, there's some option trades that were like, not normal and especially on volume those couple of days i never heard the term before but it was basically there's retail and there's what i asked you about yours but there was a day So there was, like, on equity, though, there was a thing where it's a term, I forget, it's two words. But I had looked it up because I was like, I've never read it before. But it was, and it's a reaction that the market does as a collective. Like, okay, screw you all, we're not buying anything. We're not selling anything, we're not buying anything. I mean, some of the stuff also that's happened, if you look at it as an alternative investment and you look at, okay, well, coin or legit coin or whatever you want to call it.

They decoupled also.

They were, you know, somebody saying, oh, this is counterinflation. That's what Bitcoin's been sold at. And then it just acted exactly like it. And then just last week it decoupled from it. So it's a little bit, to me, I don't know. Yeah, a lot of mean orientation. Yeah, but the one that struck me is when that volume last week, the volume dropped super low on the I just wish everybody, I mean, we'd be in much better shape if the whole world during COVID just wiped out all the debt. This is just nonsense. If all the major central banks had just had an agreement and accord for wiping out debt, So it should have been, or just whatever, just value it, just like if it's a bond issue, you know, it's like queue up and then we'll just settle this all out. Yeah, no, it could have been, and everybody was in the same boat. No pun intended. I mean, boats weren't moving, just like you said. So the whole world was in the same spot.

That was the time to settle that. And easier than doing a war.

Most of the time you try to settle that, you just go to war. Yeah.

Thank you.

You were through, right? Not because you lost me and Jim. No, no. We took a two-minute break. Okay. All right. Mr. Levinson?

I can tell Adam's ready to put his coat back on. Yes.

Trustees, the good news is it's a very short attorney's report. So you covered a lot of territory today. So the only thing I'm going to mention to you is that we follow Tallahassee and legislation. And there are no pension bills that directly relate to municipal plans. There is a BDS, meaning the boycotting of Israel bill that went through the Florida legislature. And we'll follow up what the FRS does. But that does not require any action. We have to wait and see if it gets signed by the governor. I expect it will. But the things are relatively quiet on my front. And I think just to remind everybody, if you want to look at dates, Yami has them. The administrator can provide them for conferences. And behind the scenes, we look forward to working with the village if any questions come up. And thank you very much.

That will conclude. We're going to just get rid of property tax. That was no big deal. Yeah, for municipalities, we'll just get rid of property tax.

So thank you for the question.

Bankruptcy simultaneously. I have a calculation on that because it was 65%. That didn't shock you at all.

So my understanding is it's studies that are going on right now. There's no actual bill, but we monitor and we stay on top of things. And I'll point out, without getting into labor and management, the issue you're identifying is an area where labor and management are on the same side of the page, because they realize that, and the manager knows this better than I, The biggest expense for municipal government is the cost of labor because you're in the service business. You provide services, and that costs money to provide services, and it has to come from somewhere. Good service. Right. So when investments hopefully maintain over the long term, when we hit our targets over the long term, and these are complex issues that Tallahassee deals with, I completely agree with you, and we will let you know if anything comes up at your next meeting that gets passed that requires any action. But at this point, there's nothing for the board to take action on.

Well, the other one they're working on that I think also affects municipalities is the property that we own and the assets that we own. The state to me is making decisions to sit there and say that no matter what size you are, If you have land designated commercial yet land designated institutional we're telling you to build houses on it which to me is a on certain things, especially a commercial that's a diminishing return on assets that the municipality actually has. I just for me as a citizen and then also on this Council, I wish that there was more lobbying to to state that that's not actually right. And it's more like home rule as opposed to legislative from top down on what our assets actually are. you you designate them as houses. That's fixed. So you designate something commercial or whatever you have the ability to sit there and you have more leeway. But that's just my two cents. So your partners are have that discussion. I just wish that more municipalities would would defend home rule over what's been happening in the state over the last five years.

So the issues you're raising are above my pay grade. I will point out that the League of Cities And I presume that the city participates with the League of Cities. That's built into their foundational documents is municipal home rule and integrity and autonomy and the role of municipalities. But I don't know that I have any answers. But anything that relates to the pension directly, we will bring you back at the next meeting at this point. There's nothing that requires any board action. Thank you, everybody. All right. Thank you. Okay.

All right. I think we already kind of covered the topic number one, which is the record keeping, which I think we have a path forward. Administrative service agreement fee increases is kind of a heads up, I think, as Dave mentioned, and the way that our contract is structured. We're on a CPI sort of basis, but hearing some comments before, and I think we're talking about In the past, the Village was maintaining what I would call a trial balance for the auditor. This is something that Holly was doing on a regular basis, and I know this is something that came up with our work on doing the filing for the police report. So I'm looking towards November, which is when typically we get the CPI numbers out of the federal government. But we'll have to look at... Because we're going to have to hire a bookkeeper to do that trial balance. And you don't have a complicated benefit plan. You don't have a lot of... exotic investments where there's lots of re-evaluations. I mean, you have a pretty standard approach. So we'll provide, I guess at the next meeting, some additional information about that, but we just wanted to give you a heads up and make sure you understand that that is something that's coming. I think that some of these changes today with doing the paperwork and having that helps tremendously and cuts down on a lot of going back and forth. So Salem Trust is asking for a signature authorization form, which again, we have a partial board today, so we won't be able to complete that in its entirety. but we'll take care of that. So my understanding is all the financial reports are done at the Village, is that correct? I know we have 23 and 24 is done also. No 24 we have until I mean the earliest June 30th okay yeah all right so well and that more is a question because the have to do the police report right and so but we we just got the 23 some working on that right now mean that's something that we've always we've always done So did you have?

No, in terms of retirement, we only have two right now outstanding. We sent a calculation to a member who's entering the drop and she has not made a selection yet. We also sent a retirement Calculation to Holly she hasn't returned her benefit selection either So we're waiting for that and in terms of the Salem trust they're really pushing us for that signature Even though we don't have a full board whatever we can get today. We'd love to give it to Salem and this is A SIGNATURE TO AUTHORIZE US TO CONTINUE TO MAKE PAYMENTS ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD TO ALL THE INVESTMENT MANAGERS FOR ANY RETIREMENT REQUEST, ANY REFUND OF CONTRIBUTION. IN OTHER WORDS, ANY TYPE OF CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN US AND SALEM, THEY REQUIRE AN UPDATED SIGNATURE LIST.

Okay, so then you probably come back to the next meeting and hopefully that signatures that we can get today and they bring back right yeah, yeah, correct.

Also just sure there's a member that attendance wise has not been at the last 3, so we have to address that isn't there in the bylaws that if they miss yeah, how was that address. Well that's September, but I mean this is 3 meetings now that there's one that there's a there's a trustee that hasn't been here.

At least 3 I think. Yeah, there's that we just that you brought it up as well. I think we have some elections coming up. In for the for June is that so.

That would have turned out at that which our board or is it September Yes, please This is what I got from the village clerk It says for the general employees pension board all resident members are well for a reappointment by June 30th 2025 according to the new rules of procedures

So shown the clerk will notice the public about the openings correct, okay. So that I mean if it's quick enough, but the other has been a trustee that's missed 3 meetings.

And then it also says for the 2 employee representatives the vacancies are open June as well.

You're up for no. So is there any term limits in the ordinance on on the employees.

Okay, I'll find out. Thank you. Before we close out, I'm sorry, are you finished?

Yes.

I know your last final thing to say, next meeting is going to be July 28th, right? Right. But I wanted to ask, just so I'm clear, we looked at two options, right? We looked at... the immediate option, immediate annuity and deferred or delayed benefit. Those are the two things we looked at.

Your deceased participant? Yes, correct.

Yeah, we talked about the possibility of doing it en masse instead of just individual. Right, but to Trustee Williamson's point, We were saying that we didn't have to wait for three months. We could do...

I would certainly hope we could do it quicker once you've got the information, just for the family's sake, if nothing else.

Right, right. So what we'll do then, just so I understand procedurally, we'll wait for them. They know of the marching orders. They'll do theirs. Then they'll get back to us to say, are we ready to convene? At that time, we'll set it up. Okay.

And we'll just do the Zoom, I would think. We'll do a special meeting. Yeah. All right. Just that topic. Okay. Yes. We can make a recommendation up to the... Yes. Yeah, exactly. It's as quick as we can. Good.

Yeah. All right. Sounds good. So we'll just wait for them to get back to us.

I heard the question. Thank you, trustees. Term limits. So the ordinance does provide a four consecutive term prohibition, but it's best to come from the city clerk's office if you can facilitate that. And I'll give you the section of the ordinance, which is 18-39. And 18-39 does have some specific language. There's also a carve-out. for people holding office on January of 2016. So incumbent board members, regardless of their prior service, may continue until their existing term expires, but it's basically a four-year term limit.

And there was talk about if you have missed three meetings.

So I don't see that in the pension plan, but I'd be happy to look and see if it's elsewhere in the city code, and I'll get together with the administrator. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much.

Okay, cool to grow.

I apologize. I've never conducted a pension meeting initiating it. So you're asking me to do something that I'm not familiar with.

Well, once we've gotten that information, I will, I will channel that through the clerk's office. then to see what's the best thing in terms of advertising for that special meeting those kind of things because she'll she'll make sure that the proper due diligence is lent to that process all we need to know is that we've got the information okay to take it into adjourn adjourn