Pension Board - Regular Meeting

We also made performance spaces where you can have theatre and dance or fashion shows as well as local markets. There's also a school for a thousand children at the heart of the project. To the right is the biggest tower in Japan. And the coexistence of very human-scale school right next to the tallest building in Japan seemed to teach us that you really can layer up a place and that the best places are full of discovery and surprise. and the play areas for the children are raised up, and even though it's the huge tower, you kind of don't notice it. Your eyes are on the human scale, and that's really what I want to talk about about Sunset Place.

But first, I thought I'd just show... Sir, can I ask you a question before you continue, if I may? We all have a couple of presidents that are landscape architects, architects. One of them shared an article, I'm not sure if everyone got it, for the Guardian. And it was actually a very pointed criticism of that last project, which I find to be strikingly, striking aesthetically, right? And I think the Guardian article described it as neighborhood crushing. And so I just wanted to, I don't, I rarely will have the opportunity to talk to you about it. So I figured I would ask you, what did you make of that criticism in terms of, with respect to that project? Because I get the opposite impression looking at the images that,

Every other article doesn't say that. That one particular journalist is particularly – read all his other articles about us. Okay. But do go to the most important things to go there and judge yourself. Yeah, I know. It's phenomenally successful in Tokyo. That's what I was going to ask.

It's something that's been accepted well by the neighborhood was my follow-up question.

Yeah. Well, the thing with Tokyo is that it doesn't have one district with just all the tall buildings, one district with the short lower things like London does. Instead, it's much more mixed and that makes the potential that we saw within it was to layer up both the new temple that's there, the old shrine, the new temple that we would build into our developments, so you get many things coexisting. So, I mean, look at the 99% of other articles.

Sorry to take you on that digression, but I was just curious to get your perspective. May I ask a follow-up question?

Sure, please. Thank you. By the way, Mr. Heatherwick, I was expecting you to arrive with a guitar because a couple weeks ago I told everyone that we were expecting a rock star today. And to that point, we're looking at Little Island in New York. You also designed The Vessel, one of the most iconic structures in the US. Designed Google Campus. So these two projects, sorry, Little Island and The Vessel are public projects. It's essentially all private. It's an office or a campus. Would Sunset Place be your first private project for public use in the United States?

close to it, of the scale? Hudson Yards is a private project for public use. It's actually sort of a new piece of land that was created by a developer there. Yeah, what we're really excited about.

So it'll be one of two in the US, right here in South Miami. Yeah. Very exciting.

The Google building does have the ability to walk through it. So there's a public route through one of the four buildings. But in fact, security has become so intense in recent years that unfortunately it isn't open. But our passion is driven by public-facing projects. And in big part because when I was growing up, One main thing I experienced was that private realms, you went to a rich person's house, surprise, surprise, it's really nice. You'd go inside an art gallery, it's really nice. An opera house, it's really nice. But why was the bus shelter? Why was the bus itself? Why was the hospital? Why were the bits we shared as a society more broadly? Why were they so bad? Our projects take years to do, so we're working on all sorts of things gradually. But I learned that the reason public projects, facing projects are so bad is because they're so hard to do. It means you have to work harder. It's like smashing your head against the wall, but eventually, it's so much more satisfying if you can make improvement in a place that we share together. After COVID, The fabric of society feels more needed than ever when so many people have been isolated where digital technologies have meant that you can lie in bed and get a PhD, you can do all your shopping from bed, you can work from home. We know that online people can be pretty toxic to each other as well. Where do we see each other? It's when we get out of our car and actually see the broad range of all of us and surprise, surprise, people tend to be civility breaks out a bit more when we're just with each other. I think public life is a beautiful,

Good afternoon, everyone.

Good afternoon.

So nice to see everybody.

Hey, good afternoon.

Are you doing Sierra?

Show your face and then we'll start. There you go.

Justin, nice to see you buddy.

Okay, let's see. Let's start off with a, well, here, let me call to order the meeting of Tuesday, December 10th, the South Miami Pension Plan Board of Trustees. So, Sierra, you want to call the roll?

Sure. Brad Cassell?

Here.

Justin Puente?

Here.

Andrew Villalo?

Here.

Alfredo Riverall? Here. Joe Fernandez?

Here.

Randy Brown?

Here.

Jose Lopez? Here. Okay, quorum confirmed.

Okay, let me start off with the, let me look for a motion in case you approve the minutes of September 13th.

I make a motion that we approve the minutes.

I second.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. All against?

I hope nobody had any discussion for that because I forgot the discussion.

Let me start off the meeting. We have Sarah Carlson here from Foster & Foster who is our new actuary. Maybe you have some background or stuff you can put with Sarah. Do you want to introduce her? She went to what college?

I think she's got this.

Has 19 kids, 42 grandkids, whatever it is. Wow.

That's a lot. No, not quite there yet. Not even close.

Sarah, you want to introduce yourself?

I would love to. Sarah knows me pretty well too. Thanks for having me, everybody. I've already had the pleasure of meeting Brad and Alfredo, whether it was over the phone or virtual meetings. It's nice to see everybody else on Zoom and have a face to the names I see on the meeting minutes. You already probably met Brad Heinrichs at the August meeting, and he also works on your plan and just the co-lead actuary here to attend the meetings over Zoom and present the valuation. I believe it's in May or April of next year. Late first quarter, early second quarter. I'll have to get that straight. But looking forward to working with you guys. I've been at Foster & Foster for a little over 13 years. I'm a Florida native. I grew up on the East Coast in the West Palm Beach area, just north of there in Jupiter. Went to the University of Florida. Go Gators! I didn't hear any Seminoles on here, so that's fine by me.

Thank God.

Great board then to work with.

We're off to a good start. We're finishing up the transition work right now.

We have a few other actuaries here that are still well-versed in your plan because we've been working on the colas and the drop schedules for some time now. So, you know, it's been a good transition so far. So we're looking forward to just continuing that way with the valuation coming up next year. I'm already working on some special projects outside of that. But do you guys have any questions for me on anything?

This question I have, okay, is has Alfredo been cooperating with you and getting you all the information that you need?

So far, so good.

Is there anything that's behind schedule because of him? Just checking.

Absolutely not. Everything's quite in order.

Just so you know, he's sitting there thinking, I had to come on here to be abused by Brad?

I'm already used to it. It's okay with me. I have been working with Sarah. It's been great working with her. I know that she's been transitioning, working with GRS. I appreciate all your help, Sarah, honestly. And thank you for giving me that 185 thing that I asked you for on the minimum benefits. It worked for us, so thank you so much. Great. You're welcome.

Did you do a minimum benefits for the 185 plan?

Yeah, I just got it a little while ago, maybe like a month ago.

Normally that comes through me, okay, or did in the past for the last 18 years.

Times have changed.

So if you could just send me a copy, sir, please.

I got you. I'll send it to you right now.

Okay, well, I'm not going to look at it right now. Sarah, any comments, any thoughts about anything you've seen so far as you're digging into the account?

Not really. You know, we had a couple questions while working on the valuation as far as how the disability benefits worked. So, you know, we sent this over to the prior actuary just to make sure we were valid for them.

In 18 years, let's see, when I first joined, Well, it's almost 19 years now. When I first joined the pension, there was somebody that was just coming off a disability. I have no recollection of this person's name, okay? And what the city does is the city gets a disability policy for a third party, and nobody pays attention to the one on our plan, okay? Did they say they have any past history of dealing with the disability?

I think our questions more pertain to how they were being calculated as far as the early retirement reductions before meeting the benefits. So, you know, we did have a couple questions just because it wasn't, as you know, it doesn't meet the minimums just quite yet. So we wanted to make sure we were valuing it correctly the way the prior actuary was. And they were actually very cooperative and answered our questions in a timely manner. we don't have any additional questions at this time on how the benefits are structured but just wanted to give you an update on all the the work that we have been kind of doing behind the scenes and everything seems to be all in order to move forward for the 2024. And then I think, Alfredo, just to let you know, please keep me in the loop of anything that's going on as far as benefits being fully adopted, because depending on the timing, we might want to incorporate that into the next valuation doing impact statements as well. But I'm sure you're well up to in the know about all of those processes.

Yeah, as you were talking, one thing I'm looking for right now in my emails is we just got our this week, two days ago, I think, or three days ago, maybe, from Jennifer at GRS. They did our OPEB. So I'm going to send it over to you so you could have it. I would assume in the next time we do it, we're just going to move forward with Foster & Foster, which already has our data and makes it easier. Okay. So I'm sending it over to you now just so you could have it already. But we're good for at least two years now.

Okay.

Do you pay for that or do I pay for that?

I pay for that. We always pay for that.

Okay.

Well, I mean, it ultimately always gets paid for.

100%, exactly. Even if I don't pay for it, I pay for it.

But I'm just saying, which board pays for it? What entity does it look like is paying for it?

It's coming from Mars. The city is helping.

Okay. Anything else? Sarah, then, you're welcome to hang around and be bored by us. I mean, David's coming up, and Cam will put on a nice show. If you want to hear about the fantastic returns we've earned during the last quarter.

I think I will. I will hang out. I think you'll mind. And just to say, I don't think that this is going to be boring. You said to be bored, but it doesn't sound like this is going to be a boring meeting.

Well, I try to add a little life to this. Brad, it keeps it lively for sure.

Sometimes a little too lively.

I have a question. I'm not sure. I missed some of what she was saying about the benefits. And you said about the disability. Does that have to do with the benefits for the 1%, for the 185, for the requirements on the disability?

No, I'm not. It had to do with how the when somebody were was to commence a disability benefit before being eligible for retirement. There was just a few questions on how the benefit would be reduced for taking it early. because it's a little different than plans we've been working on previously. And it was just a few small questions that everything's cleared up.

Yeah, Jose, I think this disability is offered from the pension plan, but nobody ever takes advantage of it because the city has that other plan that they pay for. And you go to that disability rather than us. I'm sure she was really, really injured.

Right now, what I'm thinking of is on the pension enhancements for the 185, one of the requirements that we need to adopt is something to do with disability. So I don't know if it's the same, which is something that we've been trying to do to see if the state would waive it so we wouldn't have to adopt that disability portion of the requirements. So I don't know if that's the same as the same disability that we have now with our pension plan.

No, your disability benefit is definitely lower than the minimums because of that reduction. I think that's, yeah, there's an early retirement penalty if you're not eligible for retirement that should be waived under the minimum benefit structure.

Which, in other words, comes with a cost, hence why it's one of the four that needs to be paid from the 185. I know what you're getting at. And to simplify, we looked at it different, different ways, and it doesn't meet the minimum requirements. What you're going to be paying for on the 185 will meet the minimum benefits. Okay. That's the bottom line. We tried multiple ways, Jose, even before, and we never were able to succeed. The state said no to us.

probably i think in the last meeting or something you guys had mentioned something that i was looking into it that there might be a possibility so i since i caught the tail end of the conversation i wasn't sure if that's what you guys were talking about no we weren't talking about that but nonetheless we did look into it and we don't need it okay perfect okay move on that's all that's right i know what you're talking about thank you you've been trying for a while and nothing

Okay. Well, the first thing we have, okay, is unless somebody else has something in here, okay, the first thing we have is David Lee's report. And they have you want to take over the take over our screens? Me? Yeah, you're David.

Yes. I didn't know I had the ability to share my screen, but thank you for the clarification. Can you all see the presentation, which in the upper left-hand corner says economic statistics?

Yes, I see it.

We got it. Beautiful. Thank you, Alfredo. Thank you for responding. I appreciate when the audience actually responds.

I got you, David. I always got you. You know that.

Appreciate it. So here's a snapshot of what the portfolio looked like from an economic statistics perspective. And in the upper left-hand corner of the page, I'll just highlight several rows here. The big takeaway is that things are moving in a consistently positive direction at a modest but generally good pace. So GDP, you'll notice here, came in at about 2.8%. That is a good modest growth rate relative to the rest of the world. We are doing quite well. Europe is about half of that pace. And as you may have heard multiple times, China has come out and said that they are going to try to stimulate their economy. So relative to the rest of the world, we're doing okay. Unemployment you see is around 4%. So modest unemployment rate, a hell of a lot better than we were obviously at the peak during COVID. CPI At the time of the book was at 2.4. Post this, it did tick up a little bit to 2.6%, but again, still in a good modest pace. The combination of unemployment being modest and CPI or inflation also being modest allowed the Fed to decrease short-term interest rates. As you all know, they did that to the tune of 50 basis points or half a percent in this quarter. Subsequent to this, at the next meeting, they did 25 basis points or 0.25%. Betting handles have December at another 25 basis points. So bringing this year down by about 1%. All of that said, meaning that at least things are moving in the right direction consistently, despite the market seeming a little bit overpriced. As you all know, depending on the valuation that you look at, the overall stock market seems to be a little bit overvalued. But when you parse out the actual underlying stocks, Still, the dominance of the handful of names, which was called the Magnificent Seven, but pretty much it just boils down to NVIDIA. NVIDIA has topped out a little bit, but obviously NVIDIA has driven a lot of the stock valuation that we've seen in large cap as well as CP500. When you parse out the handful of technology names, the rest of the underlying stocks tend to be a little bit discounted relative to the long-term trading averages. So there can be an argument on either side whether or not the stock market will continue to rise. Although, as we all sit here today, obviously we are north of 25% this year on the heels of what we saw last year. And there aren't too many of those chances where you get to see a lot of years back to back of 20 plus year returns. So we have a couple more trading days this year to notch that off. We shall see what happens next year. Having said that, if you look in the upper right hand corner of the page, it was a very good solid quarter. So as you all know, I usually highlight the S&P 500 because that is a good way to measure the broad economic equity market. That was up 5.9% for the quarter, bringing the 12-month return to 36.4%. So those are pretty gaudy numbers. If you look at stocks, they were up on average over 30%. So let's not get used to that type of return because there is a lot of gray hair on this board. As you all know, those are not numbers that we can be accustomed to. In fact, if you look at that first column for everything, it was positive. I don't get to say that too often. So stocks of different stripes, bonds were positive, and even real estate eked out a slight positive number, at least for the quarter. The only thing I'll highlight for the quarter is if you look at the bottom left-hand corner of the page, it was a little bit different because that column that says value outpaced the column that says core. I'll paste the columns that says growth. And small cap actually outperformed mid cap, outperformed large cap. So that's a little bit unusual because as you can see in the 12-month or the trailing year square, large cap growth was the place to be as dominated by the technology stocks that we talked about. But for the quarter, there was a flip. For us, as you know, we are pretty well diversified and we have our equity exposure domestically indexed. So we're going to get what the market's going to give us. So if you look at the performance summary page here, The snapshot of the corpus over different trailing periods, you notice for the quarter, the fund gained 5.2%. In kind of in the middle of the pack, our shadow index was 5.4%. So a little bit behind the shadow. And that's primarily because we did have a little bit of underperformance from our active components. If you look down the column, you'll see that large cap is indexed. Match the benchmark. Mid-cap index match the benchmark. International active slightly behind the benchmark. However, over the long-term 10-year number, you'll see beating the benchmark by 1.5% annualized. Real estate slightly behind the benchmark there, negative 1.4 versus a positive 0.3. However, five-year annualized, you see it easily outpaced the benchmark by about five times almost. Fixed income slightly behind the bogey at 4.9 versus 5.2, but again, over the long term outpacing the benchmark by half a percent, which in fixed income land is a very solid return. The first row for the prior quarters also, though, show how strong the performance has been. for the longer periods. So fiscal year to date, which is a trailing year for us, the fund gained 23.6%. As you know, our hurdle rate is 7.375. So we've pretty much tripled that return for one year, putting us in the top quartile. Trailing five years and 10 years, you'll notice that we're roughly top decile at 9.6, 8.6. And since June of 08, we're 8.1% annualized. So very good long-term numbers. without being too risky here. We have put our risk, if you will, in the equity side of the equation, and you see in the upper right hand corner of the page, roughly 42% of the fund is in large cap. We have another 25% in SMIC cap or international, and the remaining 32% ish, let's say, is either in real estate, fixed income, or cash. By the right hand corner of the page, we started off at $61.3 million. And by the end of the quarter, we're at $63.6 million. What I will say to you is that October was a tough month. November was a very good month. So as we said today, the portfolio value is closer to $65.7 million. So after this book, we appreciate it a little bit more. Page eight is the pictorial depiction of the corpus over this entire period. And as you see, the dark line is the actual experience of the fund. It has gone into that northeast quadrant. It's not a smooth ride, but consistently over the long term has done nicely. I really like to see the actual growth in terms of numbers. Bottom right-hand corner of the page, you see the portfolio started off at $18.3 million. And even though we are a net cash flow negative fund to the tune of about $3.6 million. We've more than doubled, almost tripled the actual values that we're getting for the entire portfolio, which is why we rose to $63.6 million. Page nine is just the asset allocation. Shows us that we are a little bit over allocated to large cap equity primarily. As you know, that's our index fund. and we are a little bit under allocated to real estate. And we do have some calls waiting for us with TA Realty. At some point, we will have to discuss reallocating a little bit more money to real estate. But for now, we start all within guidelines. And page 12 is probably the last page I'll touch on in the quarterly book. But what this does is it decomposes what we saw a moment ago in performance summaries. It puts names to the components. The Vanguard S&P 500 is our index fund for large cap. And as you see in dark black, that second row matches the navy blue right below it. The Fidelity Extended Market is our index with SNP cap exposure. Same thing, similar in nature. Treehouse is our sole international manager. They are a small cap growth manager, so they are going to be a little bit more volatile, but you'll notice that even though they underperformed for the quarter since June of 2011, which is the longest period that we show the return for the product, that gained 9.2% while the bogey was at 6.5%, so almost 3% annualized. And then for real estate, we really have two bites at the apple, TA Realty 12 and 13, both which were slightly off of the quarter. Not really concerned. As you see, the longer-term track records of both those products are fabulous. TA Realty 12 outperforming the benchmark by 18% annualized, and 13, of course, being the benchmark by almost 50%. Agincourt, we have two different flavors of fixed income with them. One's more core, so it's broader, and one is more intermediate, so it has a slightly shorter duration, a little bit less risk. They've done their job over the long term. You'll see that both of them have outperformed their respective bogies. So I ran through the portfolio, kind of giving you an idea on the asset allocation. reminding you that we're a little bit over-allocated to equity, but we're comfortable with it. We are comfortable with all of the components. Don't make any recommendations to any changes to any of the managers, but happy to address any questions you have on the portfolio.

Well, we've got a new president. And he says, okay, he's going to rock Bitcoin. Okay, so why aren't we buying? No, I'm just kidding.

You're killing me, Brad. You're killing me. Huh.

I'm scared for a second. I still don't understand how you can buy air and it goes up in value. It just doesn't make any sense. I mean, I'm good with the way things are.

I had a question, Bradley. David, thanks for the presentation. Just curious, if I wanted to understand some of the individual holdings under some of these managers like the Adjunct Court or the TA Realty Funds, for example. Is that something that I can get access to?

We would be able to share that with you. We don't have it in the books because TA Realty actually has a separate presentation with all their holdings. And that's something that we could provide as an extra or as an addendum. For fixed income, we give you an idea of what their actual holdings are. But to enumerate all their holdings would be quite lengthy. But again, that's something we can share with you.

Okay. Sierra, is that something I would reach out to you for, I guess, and then you'd get it from David? Or would I reach out to David directly?

I think either way. David, do you have a preference on that?

No. No, defer to you guys.

Everything goes through Sierra. So there's records of what's requested and when it was requested and how quickly he was responded to. It's important that he gets this. You might want to start them off with the symbols for the S&P 500. That's the only symbol we got, right?

So Vanguard, it's in the presentation, but it's a picture. Oh, yeah, right. Victor Frank Indigo Alpha X-ray.

Well, send it to Sierra. Send that one and send the, we'll go back to that. I lost it.

I'm going to show you in the presentation.

Oh, you have it in there? Yep, it's in the book. So page 35 of 80 is the ticker of the S&P 500 index fund. And then similarly.

Well, slow down so he can take notes.

No, it's okay. It's okay. I've got the, I have the materials. PDF.

Yeah, and then page 44 of AD has the ticker symbol. Yep.

Awesome. And then on the fixed income side, my other question was, is there a need for... like you know quarterly income producing assets because there's certain payments we're making we're trying to you know also manage cash flow or are you more strictly just focused on you know appreciation i'm just curious if there's that consideration andrew first of all anything you get from ta realty is confidential okay and you can't share with anybody especially especially them okay and as to your second question do you have any thoughts or ideas of something that

I mean, we're always looking for something unique, okay, that's conservative as hell.

Well, you know, in general, I'm of the philosophy, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And it sounds like, you know, we've been doing a great job here with the returns and stuff. But I'm just trying to, you know, understand kind of what our investments are and have some thought, you know.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, happy to give you a little bit of background. Andrew, obviously, because you work for a real estate firm, and I'm sure you've dealt with TA Realty in the past, would echo Brad's comments that what we get from TA Realty should be held confidential to the extent that you can. Our fixed income allocation is really our balance to the portfolio. And what we've done is we've tried to maintain something that is a reasonable allocation, consistent type of returns with some sort of yield. So that's why we split between fixed income ag as well as intermediate ag. And they're kind of plain vanilla. So typically going to be A or better. And we're not trying to take a ton of risk there. And, yes, we are cash flow negative, so we do have a cash demand for us. Our non-equity allocation is part of that, but it's not just a dividend play, if you will. It really is the less aggressive allocation in the asset allocation.

Okay. All right. Understood.

If you have something that you want us to look at, feel free to throw – I mean – I'm always interested in learning something new and maybe there is, you know, maybe you have a thought or an idea that, you know, is good. And I'm not going to, I don't want to hold you back from, you know, I mean, I just don't want to buy a bunch of rehab houses and K and whatever. It ain't no fun.

I appreciate it. Maybe Alfredo coin. It's a new cryptocurrency that he just made up.

We can control it.

Mind blowing. That's just still going out there. It's crazy to me.

And just to share a little bit of institutional knowledge, because we have gone through some iterations of looking at other asset classes that are a little bit more fixed income, like in proxy, but not equities. And we've kind of whittled it down to what we have today. So the logical step would be, if you're looking at real estate, you look at open-ended funds or do you get closed-end funds? And there was a significant pushback, I think, to say comfortably that we were looking at more closed-end funds than we were at open-ended funds. And in closed-ended funds, we were looking at something that's more like a core plus value add as opposed to opportunistic. So at least on the real estate perspective, you're looking at a life of anywhere from five to 10 years, which we felt was still somewhat manageable. Versus, let's say, if you go into a real asset play like timber, agriculture, infrastructure, whose lives tend to be a little bit longer, there are some liquid plays there, but the closed-end funds there typically have 15, 20-year lives. So those are kind of put aside.

We did look at a timber company and we spent a lot of time on it. When it came down to it, I got real nervous. Right after we decided we weren't going to do it, I think there was a collapse in Brazil. That was where part of the assets were. We ended up making the right decision by staying conservative. I've looked at other pensions and in these other pensions, their manager's come up with all of these fancy investments to try to capture another 100 or 200 basis points. And they end up making these investments. They end up never performing as good as they did the year before you bought it.

Past performance is no indicative of future performance.

That's right. And, you know, and I look at some of these. And one of the things that I've done over the years is this is going to be my 19th year. One of the things is, I mean, I've sat in board meetings where we've had investments that nobody had any clue, okay, what that partnership was. And it was only made up of stocks, right? Okay, and so we've gotten away from all these fancy convoluted, let's capture another 115 basis point kind of things. And then you find out it's not liquid. They don't want to sell it for 60 or 90 days. And then what happens from there is you end up seeing what was sold. And what was sold are all high volume stocks that could be sold at the market any day of the week. So, I mean, that's what we've gone through. But I'm more, trust me, if you've got something in case, you know, send it over, you know, we'll look at it and, you know, and we'll throw it on an agenda to discuss.

Okay, please.

And that's everybody else, too. Okay, Alfredo, in your spare time.

Another presentation, can't wait. I'm afraid you sound like the penguin.

He did sound like from, what do you call it, from Batman.

Batman.

Yeah, right. Okay, what else do you have, David?

I think next on the agenda, I had the international equity search.

Yeah, I mean, I don't see anything that's that much better than what we have now or returning any better than we have. I mean, did anybody get a chance to look at that? Joe, stop playing video games. Unmute yourself.

No, I did not, but I'd be happy to hear David's perspective on it and what he was able to figure out or find out or what kind of response he got back on whichever money managers he was looking at.

Sure. Sarah, can you do me a favor and just call that up, please? I'm having a little bit of a technological issue here bringing that up.

Sure, just give me a second.

Thank you.

It's 3-1-B. 3-1-B.

So while we're waiting for that, short discussion on international equities. As you know, especially for those that are a little bit more connected to the markets, international equities, especially emerging markets, are trading at a discount relative to what it has domestically. There's a reason why it's trading at a discount, right? Had you been a little bit more exposed to international equities, returns haven't been as good as it has been for just U.S. equities. Having said that, having an allocation into non-U.S. is easily supportable because obviously you want to have a little bit of diversification and over the long term, the idea is that hopefully you have some pieces that zig versus other pieces that zag and international should do okay for you as part of your allocation. So if you could flip to the next slide for me. And this is a snapshot of some organizational information on four different allocations. Driehaus number one is your current allocation, international small cap growth. Number two is federated. Joe, I think you had mentioned looking at the federated product.

Yeah, I still use federated. They've done well for us. Yes. Taking into consideration what you mentioned, obviously, it's been a growth play for a long time other than, I think, what was it, 2022, 2023? Sure, yeah. Well, but they've been sustaining pretty good, and I'm very familiar with their domestic value strategy, and they're very good money managers, so. You know, again, it may not be stellar, but they're solid managers, so I like them quite a bit. As far as their value dividend, it's consistent cash flows, and they're pretty steady on their returns, so I like Federated.

And as you see from the Morningstar ratings, it's a four-star product. So as active managers go, it's a solid product. We'll get to it in a moment, but the fees may be a little bit different from what you're accustomed to because the product that I believe you might have alluded to is one that's only available to wire houses or for financial advisors. So it's a little bit different from this fee structure, but the strategy remains the same. Number three is an index fund option with Fidelity. And number four is another active manager, MFS. It also happens to be a little bit growth-oriented because, as you all suspect, if you look at international managers, they come in different styles, growth, core, value. And as we've talked about, growth has really been the better place to be. So MFS is Their strategy is growth-oriented, but it's a little bit more of a conservative growth manager. It's something called GARP, which is growth at a reasonable price. So they try to buy stocks that aren't trading at astronomical valuations, but still have reasonable growth perspective. So they feel that over the long term, hopefully it does better than it does worse. Okay. When you look at this, I think a couple of the numbers that for me stand out is if you look towards the bottom of the page, you see something here that says five-year upside capture, five-year downside capture. So ideally what you want is your active manager to outperform the benchmark on the upside and underperform on the downside, meaning when the stock market, or in this case, when the international markets go up, hopefully they go up more. When they go down, hopefully they go down less. So you'll notice that for column one, treehouse, there is that dichotomy because it's over 110% on the upside and the downside, it's about 95%. So that's very nice. For the federated product here, they're both below on the upside and downside. And then for Fidelity, the index fund, they're actually both above. However, if you look at MFS, it has similar attributes to what we saw with 3House, where it's a little bit over on 100%, and it's a little bit below on the downside as well. They are all pretty diversified portfolios. The one that's most concentrated will be federated at 44%. As you would expect, the index fund has the most number of securities at about 750%. And they do have pretty good diversification because you'll notice that all of them are invested in at least 14 countries and all of them have some exposure to emerging markets. The index fund obviously is the least exposed, while the current product that we have is the most exposed with 14%. And in turnover, our current product does have the most turnover, but honestly, all of the exposure that we would have in international is in mutual funds anyway. So it doesn't matter to the extent that at the end of the day, the performance would show you net of fees. So whatever expenses are associated with the trading is already embedded in the performance. When you talk about actual fees here, The cheapest option, of course, is going to be the index fund, which is column three. Fidelity is only three and a half basis points. The most expensive is our current one, which is not surprising because they are small cap in nature. Next slide, please. Thank you. so what we did was we just gave you some performance numbers for different calendar years the most recent quarters and trailing three and five years no science to this but people always like to look at long-term track records and try to see if the manager is outperforming the bogey over the long-term calendar year seems arbitrary but it seems very reasonable to us three and five years also a little bit somewhat arbitrary but at least it's not just a snapshot it is a little bit of a lengthening of the window that we analyze these managers so for drehass they are a small cap growth manager and their performance for the trailing three years you'll notice is negative 1.26 five years is 9.23 Their comparable benchmark is the last column to the right, the MSCI EFE Small Cap Growth Index. For a comparable period trailing three years, the benchmark was down 3.67% and for five years it was up 5.94%. So it's been the benchmark nicely for the trailing three and five years. The third column from the right is is the broader benchmark that's focused only on developed markets. That's called the MSCI e-fee. The net index is after you take away different expenses related to taxes. And that shows you at about 5.5% annualized for three years, five years, 8.2%. So our allocation actually did underperform over the three years, but over the five years, that performed dramatically. Now, when you look at the other three columns, Federated, Fidelity, and MFS, as you would expect, Fidelity is in line with the benchmark, but both Federated and MFS have outperformed the benchmark. I don't think you could go wrong if you wanted to give a little bit of money to either the index fund or to one of the other allocations to just broaden our exposure. Also, I could comfortably support an idea of just being a little bit more aggressive into your international exposure and making a retreat as well. So we provide the information to give you an idea. There are multiple ways to skin the proverbial cat and you can have another allocation with something that's a little bit more broad. And these are a couple of reasonable options.

David, can you talk a little bit to the lower beta, about 25% lower beta on the federated versus the rest and the steady flows and or steady growth and the stability of the fund versus the risk return regarding the others. Sure. And that may be something to consider.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the federated product, this is just one of the products that they have. It is a solid product. The beta tends to be a little bit low. It means that on average, it's actually taking a little bit more risk relative to the other products as it's standing deviation. So that kind of speaks a little bit to why that their batting average tends to be a little bit lower. But despite that, over the long term, especially because of its value orientation, it's done quite well, which is a good balance, if you will, with what we have for international growth. So, again, in the way of constructing the portfolio to diversify the international allocation, that's a reasonable way of doing it as well.

Yeah, okay. I mean, I like the fact that, you know, the dividends are still important, and... the stability of the, of the, of the, of the returns and the spread. If you look at the spread between the indexes and the, and the rest is quite a bit, you know, you got about 200 basis points on average, almost 300 basis and the fidelity, you almost have five, uh, three change or two and change. And obviously a very broad change in, in, in the spread of, uh, on the small cap. So I would say we may want to consider something into the federated in my opinion.

I'm good with making a decision like that. I'm just comparing some stuff on my computer here.

What do we have in the small cap now, David? What's the allocation?

It's about 10% of the portfolio, so call it about $6.7 million, give or take.

10% of the portfolio is purely in the small cap. Okay. I mean, I think if we can spread that 10% a little bit over, other than federated, I'm a little biased towards federated. They're pretty steady, and they have a very concentrated position. Who do you like, Fidelity, MFS, and or should we consider maybe doing 25% each across the board and just look for the lower cost of Fidelity, look for the... you know, maybe some of that partial growth on MFS, but at the same time, not completely leave the small cap. I'm thinking possibly maybe 25% each of the 10%.

So I would actually push back a little bit on that. And here's the reason for it, because We are a long-duration portfolio. We're not going to need the bulk of these assets anytime soon. This portfolio can stand some volatility. So if we do do a quarter each to every one of these allocations, in fact, what you're going to get is an index fund return, just at a more expensive price. So I think it's reasonable to split the allocation between treehouse and another piece. I just wouldn't want to overly diversify.

Got you. In that sense, then maybe forget about federated and maybe go with MFS, like a 50-50, since they still have growth, but more of a larger cap. That works as well.

I like MFS on the returns. I mean, that's the one. How much is their cost?

Remember, it has been our history since I've been here that we will not get next year

the returns that they are getting this year.

Let me ask you a question, David. Let's say that Trump does go and put 25% tariffs on Europe and add an additional 10% to China and then up to 25% in Mexico and Canada. What's that going to do?

Everything's going to be red. Well, why don't we look at the country and diversification per fund and maybe look at that real quick.

Yeah. So, I mean, the most diversification you're going to have is actually with treehouse because they put a lot of little pieces into smaller countries as well. But right after that would be the index fund.

Right. But I'm saying, can we look at each one of the funds concentration per country?

Yes, we don't have it here, but yes, we could give you a breakout of that. But as you know, the greatest exposure are primarily going to be Japan and Europe overall. So whether it's France or England or Germany, generally those are going to be the major four. And then on the margins, other places, because the majority of these exposures are going to be in the developed countries.

If I was a betting guy, I'd put more on the Japan side. I think that's fair.

But understand something, okay? We can't bet on an individual, you know, that Japan's going to do real well for the next seven years, okay? And then after that, it's going to be Norway or Iceland, okay? We can't do from there, okay? We have to pick, I mean, we have to stick with one of these large funds. And I really, I mean... I really don't have a problem with even moving the whole thing over to the International Index Fund. That's just me. I mean, we take a lot of risk with Three House. It seems to be less than the other international fund, which we closed out earlier this year, I think.

Yes.

Yeah, so, I mean, I don't mind changing the tactic, okay? I don't mind changing the tactic, okay, if you wanted to go and put half the money in the Fidelity and half of it into the Federated.

That could be a plan.

I don't have a problem with doing something like that. I know that means the guy's up in David's office and can't have more work, but hey, you know.

Happy to do it.

We're all friends. We're all friends.

Yeah. Do you want to think about this? I like Brad's recommendation also with some of the international stuff here now. I mean, it seems to be still a large cap winning. It seems like large cap still has the upper hand. with a considerable amount of volatility on a worldwide basis and all the uncertainty that's out there right now, I don't see anything stabilizing for the next two to five years, hopefully. I mean, there's a great time to make money, but I agree with Bradley that possibly a lower beta, higher... I believe, if I'm not incorrect, that the... Federated and Fidelity tend to hold larger caps versus the other funds, correct?

Federated, Fidelity, and MFS will be larger cap than Dreamhouse. By nature, they're large cap focused.

I agree with you, David. Over time, let's assume we take the volatility, but then you go back to the turtle in the hair kind of thing. If you look at some of these funds, MFS has also done well over time. You know, actually better than the small cap and the world we're in right now, as I said, I mainly a little bit more towards, you know, having larger caps and lesser caps. I mean, for all intents and purposes, I just take 100% of the small cap and go with federated fidelity and MFS and just spread it equally. Again, you're getting into an index total return more or less, but I think each one has their specialty. The Fidelity is more indexed, whereas the Federate is a lot more specialized. You can see on that third quarter, 2024 returns of almost 13%. So that concentrated precision did add alpha to the total return. And, you know, over time, you got the stability of MFS. It seems pretty well in the same thing with Fidelity. So I would motion to just split it in three and go with federated fidelity and MFS along of what Brad recommended other than including MFS as part of the sauce.

Justin, come on. Randy, come on. Jose, give us an opinion.

Before they do, just one quick question. Did I say your name? No, I know you didn't, but I'm going to say it. Just two seconds. Did you guys call me? David, real quick question. I know. And listen, by all means, I think Brad and Joe's, I think they're great recommendations, but would you recommend, obviously you don't recommend spreading it across four, right? We heard that, and you specifically said it, and I understand exactly why.

Yes.

Would you feel the same way about spreading it with three, or would you prefer two? What would be your preference, David? If it was your money, what would you do? Technically, it is your money.

I paused because if it was my money, I'd probably just index a little bit, right? And that's it. But if we're going to make an active bet, I think just 50-50 federated and MFS and not put the index fund in there because what you're doing is essentially you're adding a stability or a regulator to that allocation because all you're doing is you're putting some money in the index and then you're putting some money in slightly value and some money in slightly growth.

I think David hit the nail on the head. Good call there, Alfredo. At the end of the day, we're talking 50% value, 50% growth. We're playing both sides of the card with good managers. Good call, Alfredo. Good call, David. I like that a lot.

I like that too. I like using the equity instead of going with the index as well. I like equity in this case.

Yeah, yeah, so I think the motion will be to take 100% of the small cap fund and put 50% in federated and 50% in MFS.

I think that's a great decision. I think that's a great plan.

Second.

Anybody else have some thoughts? Who else? Justin, come on, smile at least. There you go. At least we got the smile. Randy, any thoughts?

Wait, who's out here? Oh, it's us again.

Okay. Jose, did you have something you wanted to say? I guess not. Okay. You want to make that into a motion then?

Hold on. No, I don't. I'm listening. I'm driving. So don't do this at home, kids.

We know you're at the Cuban restaurant at the window with your cafecito and... Don't lie to us. Oh, he jumped in his car.

I'm in the city of Miami.

Miami? What are you doing there?

I'm in the city of Miami. I'm doing work stuff.

Work stuff.

Yes, so I can go and sit down at Casa Cuba. I already got in trouble for that.

Everybody else is always there.

I make a motion that we move forward with the plan, giving 50% of small caps over to federated and the other 50 to MFS. I second.

Motion and a second. Okay. You understand what they want, David?

Yes, sir. Okay.

Any discussion? Excuse me. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Hearing nothing in K that is unanimous.

I'm sorry, who was the second on that? Was that Joe?

No, that was Jose. Jose.

Okay, got it. Thank you.

Okay, let's do that tomorrow, people, please. Okay, I will be out of town Thursday and Friday. I'm going to the AKC. I'm going to the AKC Championships in Orlando. 5,000 dogs. And me, that's 5,001 dogs.

If I get the letter before noon, I could probably get that out. But I do have a meeting tomorrow that requires about six hours. I'm going to let that, you know,

And my plan is more important. Brad, there's no urgency. We could always just do this next week. It's not a big deal.

Well, I'd like to get it done. Now that we've made the decision, I'd like to do it just because that's what the board wanted. So that's just my opinion. We'll get it done.

We'll aim to do it tomorrow.

Okay. You want to get this done sooner than later. I agree with Brad, whether it's for the better or for the worse. But... You don't want to second guess. That's for sure.

I just wanted to make sure everybody's aware of my time restraints.

So just do it as soon as possible. I think everybody's okay. Just do it as soon as possible, but not just kick it and wait kind of thing.

I think Sierra got a new bar for her house and she just wants to hang around and

I wish that was the reason. I really, yeah.

I dream positive things for you.

If that was the case, I might be sitting there right now, but unfortunately it's not.

How do we know? You just didn't hang the Foster and Foster sign behind the bar. I have the Celsius.

I'm drinking caffeine.

Okay.

No Cheetos right now.

Okay.

Okay, David, you got anything else for us? I think I had the guidelines highlighted. on my portion of the agenda. We could discuss it or we could punch it to the next meeting.

Let's punch it to the next meeting. Everybody focus on the investment guidelines, okay, for the next meeting, please.

Okay, when you get a motion, get a motion to table that then. Motion that we table it. To the next meeting.

To the next meeting. Joe? Joe's seconded. Motion is seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. All against? Okay, it passes unanimously. But do me a favor, Sierra, send out that investment policy as a separate email to everybody. You get on all the trustees in the next week or so. And then in another six weeks, send it out a second time with an email that says, in case you missed my first email, we're going to discuss this at the next meeting and we're going to finish it up.

Good call, Brad.

Okay.

That's it, David, or you got more? Yes, sir. No, I'm all done. Thank you.

Do you want to talk about your kids' baseball league?

Softball. We're going up to Dartmouth this weekend. Last weekend we went to Emory.

There we go.

Thank you, David.

Okay. David, thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Have a great Christmas and New Year's and anything else that you might want to celebrate because you can get a drink out of it.

Thank you all. I'll jump off. Happy holidays to everybody.

Okay. You take care.

Thank you.

Okay. So we're done there. Okay. Next up is Brent.

All right. Okay. I'll invite him to go over. Yeah, that is being discussed, right, Alfredo?

Talk my memory. What are we talking about on the drop? I'm looking at it now. Update on the amending drop language. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's built in.

When you exit the drop, okay, you got 90 days to take your money and go someplace else.

We are discussing it. Jose is well aware of it. It is inside of the union agreements. Yes, absolutely.

Make sure that's board recommendation, okay, because we don't enact the laws. We just administer them, but this is something we see that should be a positive for us.

Yeah, and I sent that letter at the direction of the board that Alfredo has in the city, so they have it.

That was incorporated, that language, just so you're aware, the reason I'm sort of, because that was incorporated at the beginning of negotiations and it was already agreed upon back then. So it hasn't come up again just because we've been focused on other areas of the union negotiations.

If you just gave these unions what they wanted, you'd be done with it.

Right, Randy? Absolutely. Absolutely.

We haven't even started with Randy yet. This is the way you have to present yourself, Randy. It's being positive. Just give us what we want and let's move on and make the city better.

Actually, Brad, we're letting the police loosen them up a little bit and then I come behind and hit the home run. They've got such a weak

person working for them. He's not going to say a word. He's just going to drive around the city of Miami and look for a little coffee bar.

Next item is updating Gilmore Moses death benefits. Brad, you can chime in here, of course, if you'd like. We went back and forth with Gilmore Moses' attorney, submitted another power of attorney that I, Ron, and Brad went over very closely. Ron had responded to the attorney, essentially informing her that we still didn't believe that it met the statutory requirements to pass as a valid power of attorney due to the notarization. There then was back and forth with the attorney in regards to follow-up questions. There was then some, I don't know how to put it, Brad, allegations by the attorney regarding questions that should have been answered, and I'm not going to get into it any further. But with that being said, we haven't heard back from the attorney. Essentially, in the end, what we've asked all along is we just want a valid power of attorney that's properly notarized pursuant to the situation that they're stating that Henry is under. And we have yet to get that. And we've requested it repeatedly and repeatedly and repeatedly. And we haven't gotten it. And that's all that we've asked for. That's all that we've ever asked for. We're just trying to follow the statutory guidelines to ensure that that we have the adequate paperwork in place in order to release the funds, and we don't have it yet, and that's where it stands.

Okay, Brent, let me just break in and say, in the beginning, we got the power of attorney that was signed by Denise using Henry's name, and that was no good. Then we came back and we got a second one with some X's on it, Because we're told that he couldn't write. There were other deficiencies in that one. And now we're up to, this is the fourth one, I think, now.

Thanks.

Yeah, this is the fourth one. I forget, the third one had other problems. The fourth one now is they're saying he's totally disabled. Okay? And if that's the case, I mean... I don't understand how he could be signing something, putting an X on it. Did he take a turn for the worse? I don't know. My opinion, I'd rather be sued by them and then have a judge tell me, go ahead and sign this. Okay, sign off on it. Don't drag your feet. I just, you know, it's more confusing than anything else because every time we get one of these, we just slap our hands on our head and go, oh, my God, okay, what are they doing now? And the last conversation was what, about six or seven weeks ago now?

Yeah. And as Brad said, this last one, like Brad said, it's not even signed by Henry. There's no X. The notary allegedly signed on Henry's behalf. But when that's done, pursuant to the statute. The notary has to put and state the circumstances and means by which the notary public was directed to sign the notarial certificate on behalf of the person. And whether it was by written verbal or other means, we asked for that because it didn't state what it was. And we asked which was it and to have the proof of direction that authorizes the notary to sign on behalf of the person who allegedly can't sign and they wouldn't produce it. So obviously we're not proceeding forward.

Can't we just ask, put this to rest and say, listen, we can send one of our persons, Randy or somebody,

No, we're not getting in. We're not going to get into that business or ask a trustee. She's represented by counsel now anyhow. Here's the problem, Jose.

All of a sudden, Randy goes and says something, or I go and I see something. If all of a sudden a long-lost son comes out of the woodwork, okay, we're liable for this money that we dispersed incorrectly. Mm-hmm. Okay, and that's what, you know, I mean, I'm using the super extreme, okay, to show this, but, you know, unfortunately, you know, they've tried to skirt the rules and regulations and, you know, I mean, I'm really at the point where I really think, okay, you know, I mean, I wouldn't be mad if they, you know, got a judge someplace. You know, because we don't know where to go with it.

Can I say something, Brett? Go ahead. Okay. I'm a little bit more familiar with the situation with Henry. Prior to Denise passing away, she was getting Henry all types of rehab and all kinds of things. And Henry was making a – He was doing a lot better. And he would sit up and he was able to move his limbs somewhat where he could make an X. After Denise passed away, he had a major setback to where now he's just, he's bedridden. He cannot sit up. He cannot write. He cannot do anything. I got a question.

Can you converse with him?

Can you have a discussion with him? No, he's not. He don't even know he's there now. He's had a major setback. So with that being said, I don't know what kind of attorney she has or what. I'm sure it's not the proper attorney that should be looking at this because I think that she herself don't know what to do. So I think it's a matter of them not being... too informed as to what to do in a situation like this because Henry right now is 100% disabled and he's incoherent. If you call Henry, he couldn't even answer. He's just sitting there. And the sad part about this whole story is when Denise was alive, she was helping him get the therapy and once he didn't see her anymore, he let go completely.

Here, Randy.

So what do we do?

Okay, thank you. I'm going to cut you off on account of the fact, okay, you've kind of like proved the point. If he doesn't have the ability to turn to the attorney and say, Mrs., I'm going to call her Mrs. Smith for argument.

I think it's Wooden or... Whatever. Wooden. What? Wooden is her last name.

Mrs. Wooden, okay, I need for you to do this for me, okay? He's the one that has to... He's been put in this situation. The attorney just can't make this up and say, okay, I'm not disagreeing with you in any way that he might be disabled in your eyes, but he doesn't have the ability to even hire this attorney and give her instruction. So in my opinion, what they need to get is some kind of guardian appointed by the court that will...

Yes. So not without getting into the weeds any further of his physical state or well-being. Look, here's where it stands. We still don't have a power of attorney that meets the notarial certificate requirements pursuant to what they're stating his physical and mental state is. We're not moving forward. We'll wait to hear back from her counsel. And like Brad said, if it's a situation that, Randy, you're alluding to, not our business, but that would be a different avenue of a guardianship or something like that. Okay. And then I just want to touch on one other thing, Brad, if you don't mind. It's not listed on there. Just two new laws that passed. that I want to bring to the board's attention moving forward, and it has to do with human trafficking and dealing with foreign countries of concern. Moving forward now, if the board enters into any contracts or renews a contract or anything like that with a service provider, we're going to need that service provider to give us an affidavit. It's pursuant to Florida Statute 787.06. It states that the firm understands and affirms that the board is prohibited from executing, renewing, or extending contract to entities that use coercion for labor or services, and therefore the service provider would attest that they do not use coercion for labor or services as defined. And that's a human trafficking affidavit that has to do with the law. And then the other one has to do with dealing with foreign countries of concern. If this board enters into a contract with the service provider that the deals with the handling of personal information of members of this plan, then they're also going to have to attest and sign an affidavit that that service provider doesn't do business with any foreign countries of concern. And I'll read the foreign countries of concern for you, and you probably won't be surprised when I name them. It's the People's Republic of China, the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Republic of Cuba, the Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro, or the Syrian Arab Republic. That Syrian one should change. Well, it may now that Assad has been ousted, but just something for the board to be aware of. We're aware of it as your attorneys if we need to get these affidavits signed.

You mean to say that Cuba's in there?

Yeah, Cuba's in there.

Cuba's in there? Wow.

Yeah. Well, what we can do is we can look at Sierra and we can say, Sierra, are you working for Foster and Foster of your own volition? Or do they have you, like, tied to the desk with chains?

Yeah, I mean, moving forward, if one of these service providers refuses to sign the affidavit, I would certainly say it's a red flag.

So we have to clearly listen when we talk to Sarah, okay, and make sure there's no chains.

Blink twice, Sarah. Exactly. That's all I have for now. Oh, okay. No, no, no.

We have one more thing.

We have a couple other things, but just under my report, that's all there is.

Yeah, okay, but let's go to the Craig Shapiro thing.

You want to jump down to new business?

Okay, yeah, let's jump down to new business, okay? If you remember, we discussed collecting the money from GRS and hiring an attorney. Finding an attorney that would work on something this small was like pulling teeth. So I went to Joe's good friend, Craig Shapiro. Craig said, I'll do it. I said, great. We need to put up a retainer with him. One of the things I want to stop doing is discussing the legal strategy that we might have going forward. on account of the fact that if we do that, we really should be having a shade meeting. But that comes with its own expenses.

Well, you can only have a shade meeting when there's active litigation. So there has to be litigation.

What about pending litigation?

Nope, it has to be active litigation.

Okay, well, okay, but either way.

Well, sir, I guess we should not even talk about it now.

No, no, no, we can talk about writing the retainer. I need to give him a $5,000 retainer so he can see what's going on and then make an assessment of the best way to attack this. I don't, I mean, maybe writing some letters in K will jog them a little bit. You know, maybe if they see that we have an attorney in K that, you know, that this is his wheelhouse, of what he does for a living and he's going to come after them for not paying this money. Uh, just so you know, I remember Craig Shapiro when his mother brought him home from the hospital when he was a baby and his mother used to sit on the couch in the, in the, in the family room and feed him his bottle. Uh, he's, his older brother was my, I guess my best friend for a lot of years. And, uh, so I do have a relationship with him and I trust him. And, uh, You don't want to say something about Craig?

You don't want to have Craig on the opposite side, my friend. That's all I have to say. So whoever he's going after, it's not going to be pleasant for those people.

Well, Brad, you want to request with the motion that you're asking or you want me to...

I just like, well, there was a letter in your packet. I don't know if you all looked at it. There are some suggested changes, okay, that Ron came up with, you know, as to who the letter is titled to or sent to and stuff like that.

Yeah, the plan would be the client, and as Brad said, if the board approves entering it in the retainer, to proceed forward, then Brad, I would just say forward that email to Craig and say make these changes pursuant, you know, in the retainer and then you can sign it. But one of the changes need to be to have listed Brad as a client. That's not correct. The South Miami pension plan would be the client. You would all be the client of the law firm in regards to obtaining the overpayment.

He's also a two-term resident of the city of South Miami.

He's a resident also, yeah. So he's basically taking it from one pocket and putting it in the other pocket.

one thing yeah yeah i myself know mr shapiro also very good attorney very good attorney and you're right joe you don't want to have him on the opposite side so yeah you're right you're right i know him well good

Do we have the follow-up motion? He was such a cute little baby in his mother's arms. Go ahead. We need a motion then.

You would want a motion to authorize the chair to execute the retainer agreement on behalf of the board to retain the services of Solomon, Cooperman, Recono, Shapiro, and Abril pursuant to the retainer agreement along with the requested changes to it from your general counsel's request.

I'll follow the motion.

I second.

The motion in a second, okay, to approve that. And it's subject to those changes that Ron recommended. Right, exactly. So I have a motion in a second. Anybody want to discuss this any further? All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All against, nay. It's unanimous. So I can contact him. Where is he on here? Oh, here.

And by the way, while you're doing that, Randy, I heard you about me softening up the city for you and your company. I don't know if that strategy is going to work very well for you because it's not going very well for us.

Man, hey, I hear you're in a knockdown drag out. So I hear, I hear. But beat them, soften them up for me, though. Soften them up. Yeah. you carry guns into those negotiations intimidate okay so that takes care of that item okay if we're lucky we can be out of here in 20 minutes uh we have uh sierra has a list of things to do do we have a new policy

It used to be, Sierra, you sent me these things in advance so I could look at them, not in a package. A week before?

I actually just got the renewal quote in today, so I haven't sent that out to the board yet, but I did. So your fiduciary liability policy expires in February. The base premium increased to a total of $199 for the same coverage. So I can send that to Brad for review, but we would need a motion to approve the renewal before the next meeting so there's no lapse in coverage.

Can I make a motion that we approve that we approve the fiduciary liability insurance with the increase.

I second it.

We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? In case there being none, all in favor say aye. Aye. All against, nay. Okay, it passes unanimously. Next, Sierra.

The NCEPRS membership, it's that time of year to get that renewed. If you all want to remain NCEPRS members, you would need a motion to approve the renewal of the membership. It is $315 for the entire board for the year.

Motion to approve.

I second.

Second. Okay, I got a motion and a second. Any discussion? There being none, in Carol's favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All against, say nay. It passes unanimously.

And then obviously we have the upcoming educational opportunities. Those are listed on the agenda there. If you want to attend anything, just let us know. The only other thing that I'll note is more for the attorney probably, unless he prefers our office to it, but the summary plan description does need to be updated. That should be updated every two years. It was last done in 2022. So we'd like to get a copy, an updated version for the next meeting. So that's more of an FYI.

Isn't that what we're working on with David?

Yeah, that's the investment policy statement. The summary plan description is like the cliff notes of the pension plan that gets distributed to the membership every two years. Brett, do you have a preference on who prepares that?

I mean, it's helpful when you guys take a crack at it and then we review it. So if you don't mind. Is there much changing? There shouldn't be.

There shouldn't be, but there will be.

We haven't really had any. I mean, there really shouldn't be much. So we'll work together, Sarah. Sierra, we'll work together. Just, you know, we'll go around. I don't think there hasn't really been any.

Copy me on it. Okay. And I can make any comments.

We haven't really had any ordinance. Yeah. I mean, nothing major.

I just want to point out if our office does it, there will be a cost associated with that. So we would prefer a board motion for us to do it.

We'll look at it.

Send the old one out to me and Brent and Kay to remind us on that. There's not a charge for that, is there?

No.

Okay, thank you. That was very nice of you to do that for free.

Are you not smiling today? I'm sorry. I'm trying to write it down so I don't forget. I'm trying to be efficient here.

Okay.

I'm going to free up time tomorrow to get the letters done for moving the money.

Yeah, that takes all of a minute or two. Okay. So that completes your report? Yes.

Okay.

Okay. Moving on to the next business. Alfredo, please tell the clerk to put in the item in case of a new Joe Fernandez for another couple of years. Got it. Okay.

Can you copy me on that, Alfredo, just so that way I know and can keep the board updated on that?

Okay. And then an old business in case of George Green's overpayments. This is something I want to talk with Craig about. Okay, and some more with Brent and Ron, but I'd like to actually do it with the three of them. Okay, on account of the fact is you have resource center and then there's a question. I had asked Ron to do some investigation as the statute of limitations. Okay, we really need to get that done first, I guess, Brent. I'm just advising you on it right now that we're going to try to do the full investigation. It might require an hour of the other attorney's time. Just for strategy kind of thing. We just discovered this mistake this year. I don't know. I mean, it could be if I could find old minutes from a meeting where GRS found a similar mistake, and I'm pretty sure that they were given instructions to go through and and check all of these, you know, check all the other retirements, okay, that Dixie Martinez did. But, you know, we're moving ahead with that, okay? I just want to, you know, I just want to make you aware that Ron's going to spend some time, you know, or Ron or Brent, whoever takes on the task, is going to take on the, you know, a few minutes of time, okay, to study the statute of limitations and, you know, And that's what's going on with that. Oh, we have a consent agenda.

I need a motion that we approve the consent agenda.

I second. I have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda. Do we have any discussion? There'll be no discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. All against nay. It passes unanimously.

Jeez, we got through this pretty quickly.

Oh, let's see. You're in your packet for a fund activity from September 7th to December 4th.

That's part of the consent agenda.

Oh, okay. Let's see. Let's see. You received some information on, I guess, we keep getting these checks from Kessler Topaz. Okay. And we haven't been in an individual stock in I don't know how many years. So, you know, we must be doing something right along the way. And then you've got copies of the drop statements. Okay, make those people in the drop your friends. They can loan you money. Oh, wait, Jose's in the drop, isn't he? No. No, he's not in the drop yet.

My wife doesn't let me retire yet.

His wife knows she gets another five years after he makes that decision. Oh, and congratulations to Jose on his son following in his father's footsteps, but with the Florida Wildlife Commission as an officer. Where's he stationed?

Miami-Dade.

Miami-Dade.

Now I can't catch any eagle fish anymore.

You've got to be careful when you're fishing with him. Take me instead of him. There you go. Oh, my daughter signed a contract on the house in Key Largo, so she will be moving down towards you.

Oh, let me know where she's at. Congratulations.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, she's coming back from North Carolina. She's only going to be two hours away.

Where is she in Key Largo?

The mile marker, I think it's mile marker 89.

Oh, she's in Tavenier.

She called her old boss.

She hired her right there on the phone so she has a base income.

And she has a couple of other things that she could do. And the FWC, NK, is bringing her back as a volunteer into their manatee program.

Oh, nice.

Yes. Oh, we've got all kinds of stories in it. But anyway, we don't need to hear those today. Do we have any trustees, reports, discussion, or action? Anybody have anything they'd like to say at this point in time? There being none, NK, we'll move on to public comments.

Don't try that to you.

What?

Go drive. Do not drive at the same time.

Okay. Remember that, Randy. Okay. Okay. Anybody?

Anybody?

I don't hear anybody. Okay. Then I'll take a, oh, Alfredo, it's important that we discuss this with you right here, right now. Right now we have March 14th, which I believe is a Friday morning. Is that good enough for you?

Let me see. Well, look at your calendar. You're right there. I'm looking at it. March 14th is perfect.

Until your girlfriend says, hey, we're going to the Keys.

Hey, happy birthday, by the way, Alfredo.

Oh, happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. He's old.

No, you want a longer meeting for your birthday, President Alfredo?

Yeah.

I can filibuster.

I appreciate it. No, I'm good. But March 14th is perfect. Okay. I thank you for the consideration.

March 14th is a Friday.

Yes.

That's a Friday. Yeah. Your meetings are always on Fridays. This one changed because we had a conflict with Alfredo's birthday.

And then I had a conflict.

Which I have to say, I like this Tuesdays better than Fridays. Do you want to change them to Tuesday afternoons?

We did. Just so you know, we already tried. And so far, we were unable to find dates where myself, David Lee, and the attorney were all available at the same time.

And Tuesdays are really bad for us because we have commission meetings on Tuesday. Today was... Okay, so...

I mean, just to move this meeting was quite a challenge. We even had some discussion about possibly having to kick this meeting to January just so everybody could be present, so...

I didn't want to pay the deductible, so... Everybody made it happen.

Everybody made it happen for Fredo. He's special. Yeah.

Yeah. You have no very special I got it. I got a question. Did your union bring him a birthday basket of some kind? I know you're asking Randy.

You're not asking me.

He's got to be asking you because I'm not negotiating with him. Oh, no, no.

Are you kidding? He sits at the end of the table and just looks and smiles.

I know.

I know what he does. That's all they pay him for if they paid him more money in case he'd do more than smile.

You can say, hey, yeah, listen, I found money to give them. No, he doesn't even say that.

Ha, ha, ha.

All right. I'm telling you. Okay, then I'll take a motion to adjourn.

I make a motion that we adjourn, and I appreciate everybody. Thank you so much, and I hope everybody has a great weekend. Thank you. By the way, March 14 is fine for me, too.

One more FYI while I have you guys all here then. So we have a new email address. It's quorums at foster-foster.com. So that will be the email requesting your attendance at the meeting. So if you see that, it's not spam. What is it? It's quorums. Yeah, ums at foster-foster.com.

Who did we merge with?

uh nobody it's just we just created a general email so that way if our administrative assistant changes there's no confusion that that's still our office rather than it coming from our administrative assistant's personal email address well not personal but work email address whatever you know it's just to help streamline the process and that's right it's more complicated for us but it's easier for you that's okay it should make it easier for you moving forward because we recently lost stephanie donahue so now that email address will just remain the same either way we get a new administrative assistant that's smart that's okay it's not costing a plan of things right correct there's no no additional okay i think it's a great idea then did i ever hear that motion to adjourn i made the motion

If we have a motion and a second, there being no discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. Bye, everybody. Happy holidays.

We'll see you next year. Bye-bye.