General Employee Pension Board - Regular Meeting

Just take a moment and, in fact, read the minutes. Do we have them? Oh, this, okay, yes, this is the minutes, yes. Oh, I didn't give you an agenda. Let's go ahead and call the meeting to order. We have five of the seven trustees available. I would note for the record that the whole business states that there was five votes Four and one against I believe that in the village council meeting it was indicated that it was unanimous It was in fact not unanimous, right? So for today's notes Again, I think what we want to do is express to the council that they were incorrect and assuming that it was unanimous and I would add on a personal basis that I was for and what was being done, but against changing the agreement that we have and felt that it could have been done better. I hear a motion to approve the minutes as written.

Make a motion.

I hear a second. second have a second all in favor of the minutes approved I think we have unanimous for that no public to public comment so we will move directly on to the warrants any questions on the warrants we normally at these before. Again, I appreciate the fact that we have received the history of the warrants to give us some context. I hear a motion to approve the warrants as presented.

Yes, I'll make a motion approval.

I hear a second.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. No opposition. The warrants passed unanimously. Old business. I don't know who's here to give us a status report about the Eric Olsen beneficiary.

Well, I was hoping that Adam was here because I know that he and the actuary have been attending the council meetings and that Eric Olsen was on that agenda.

Yes.

but it is my understanding that they still have not yet made a motion to go one way or another. Adam has not reached out to me. I don't know if he's running late, but he would be the one reporting on this.

I thought a first reading was approved. Am I incorrect?

You are 100% correct. I don't know which first reading you're talking about, but as far as the council,

As far as how you mechanically go about it, that's a different conversation, which hopefully you all know. I thought they were changing something about how the beneficiary was paid out because of the age difference between him and her.

Oh, I don't know. You said it passed, though.

No, it passed, but I think that was one of the things they were wanting to fix for the next reading. I thought that's what I heard. And it makes sense.

Yeah, it's... Well, this fellow was off, what, a month or something from... Early retirement. Yeah, early retirement. But still, he...

what there is, but if there is a, let's just use five years. If you are 65 and she is 60 because of the death benefit, a lady lives longer than a man, And I think the way – Because of the actuarial art as far as the council meeting was not – No, but I thought that was the thing that Lisa had brought up that said that when she threw the kibosh in it there. But the, you know, the vote was unanimous. And as far as the final payment, what she would give was going to be figured the way that everybody else has.

We did not discuss that. I assume that this committee will understand what she's really entitled to and then make a recommendation relative to that.

If you want to do that, that's fine. We can bring that up again, but

Yeah, so it's going to be pushed back to this committee for the final decision as to how the mechanics?

It was my understanding that that was our vote. Nothing about this was brought up as far as if there's technical things here as to the five years you're talking about. we didn't discuss any of that nor do I believe we're qualified to be discussing that which is one of my complaints of what's happened why do we have this committee we have people on here hopefully that are more knowledgeable on pensions than our counselors and so you know the council is basically favor of trying to help as much as as we can but as far as what's in the program and and you know whatever the years are and etc that ought to become

You guys have an actuary plan of that.

Right, and I know that Dina and Adam are both, I guess they have to work together to put the logistics in writing, whether it's an administrative rule or a change in the ordinance. That's what's going on behind the scenes.

Okay, that's fine.

Well, it will change the SBD, the summary plan description. I mean, this is your constitution right here for you guys. It's clear, because this is what's changing, that if you die, he's subject to early retirement now. She would have got her contributions back plus 3% interest. That's been completely struck. What was decided at the council was that you know, she's going to get early. But from what I'm hearing, I wasn't there. There's a thing called reduction, and that's in the SBD, too. So if you die, if you had early retirement, you see this? At 55, it's a 47% reduction. At 56, it's 42%. This is what they're talking about. Because I think the way it reads is that she would be exempt from that. There would be no reduction. Correct. Well, that's what I'm assuming. I wasn't there at the time.

The only reduction would be, let's just say he made his 30 years. Yeah, full retirement. Full retirement. Right. And then you still have to take a reduction for your wife.

Because the payout is potentially longer.

Right. And if she's younger or whatever, there is a difference.

But at this point, it's not been.

It's not in our hands.

It's not been referred back to the committee, which is what we're saying. No, it's not in our hands. Okay. Then I think what we do is go on to the investment consultant report. Where'd he go? Oh, there he is. Can I ask one question? It ought to be distracting. One second. Yeah.

At least from my two cents, as far as the council, we are interested in what your opinion is on this, which I've just been educated some right now. Who is going to be better qualified to decide that? Or is this all in the existing...

It's in their...

It's already done. So it's just a matter now of seeing...

Okay, fine.

All right. Yes.

Okay.

All right.

All right. Good morning.

Would you please reintroduce yourself? Yeah, of course. The new Mr. West.

Yeah, I'll give you all an expanded version of the introduction today. But Dave, unfortunately, cannot be here. Again, I'm James Reno with Mariner. I'll be your investment consultant. As Dave does his professional transition, he's starting to kind of Bring in the reins a little bit start looking for retirement not completely, but I'll start stepping up over this next year He's not ducking out again. He just couldn't make it but he's still very much in the background and we're discussing your plan before Every meeting so I am James Reno. I serve Florida public pension plans across the state of Florida just like yours I'm also see if a charter holder and and I have a background in economics from the University of Georgia. I doubt there are any Bulldogs fans in here today. Okay, I'll have a joke later. I'll sneak up. No, we're not. Go ahead. So I'll try to keep the bulldog analogies minimal in this room. But very much looking forward to working with y'all. So we'll be covering the performance report today. All good news there. Then we have an updated IPS. Remember, we moved 5% from fixed income to equity pro rata. So we're now 70%, 30% balanced portfolio. So what we want to do is just codify that in the IPS. We also have some regulations out of Tallahassee that we want to cover in your IPS and bring the plan up to speed on. Finally, we have a standing rebalance letter. We'll review that briefly, just get the board to approve that. Basically, just being a good partner with Salem so they can raise cash efficiently as needed for benefit payments.

So this is a Salem you want to look at? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So just in the performance report, I'm going to open up the page three. so i think i think 2025 will always be remembered as the year of tariffs and tariff related volatility but we've had another dominant theme and i think even the more important theme and that's been an ai into ai build out and i really don't think we would have seen the returns we saw this year had ai not been supporting the overall market despite this volatility but we woke up early this year we got on the tariff on and off roller coaster Little did we know it was the roller coaster ride you couldn't get off of, and we've been living Groundhog Day every day. We woke up in early April, and the stock market was down almost 20% because of the Liberation Day announcement, which is serious correction territory. Since then, we've made quick progress in the third quarter, not only progress on negotiations, but we had concrete trade deals go through with Japan and the EU, and the stock market responded positively to this. On the other side, corporate earnings were also a concern as tariff volatility was happening throughout the markets. Corporations were not only able to defend their earnings. Hey, good morning. How you doing?

Good morning.

So corporations were not only able to defend their earnings, but we saw impressive earnings growth across the board. So much so, you take the progress on negotiations and impressive earnings. We hit 32 all-time highs just this year. And the cherry on top was in mid-September, we got the first interest rate cut in nine months. So the markets responded positively to this, and all this contributed to the great returns. Got everything? Okay, great. So on page three, just going into the market backdrop, I'll let you get set over there. Oh, it's all ready right here.

Okay, and I have it. Thank you.

Good morning. Good morning. We're just on page three of the performance report. So in the bottom right corner, you can see U.S. stock market for the one-year time period since this is your fiscal year, up almost 18%. International equity, the MSCI Acquiesce U.S., up 16%. And the Bloomberg U.S. Act, the U.S. bond market, up 3%. So just what we want to see, positive returns across the board. But I think we do have to ask ourselves, if we had all this terror volatility, but not the optimistic backdrop of AI, would we be looking at these results today? And I just think that just drives home the point of how much has hinged. on AI and the AI build up and you'll see that and how it influence your portfolio when we get into your plan results. So any questions there on the market environment? Okay, we'll move on to plan results. So page 12. positioning. You have your vertical lines, your targets, and we want those triangles to be close to the targets. You see that red triangle outside the upper bound for domestic equity? Remember, we moved 5% from fixed income to equity per annum, so you're actually very close to those new targets we're just not showing it yet in your report until we codify it in your ips that will be showing your new targets on your fourth quarter report but just coming down you can see r d your cash we have a two percent target remember dave was doing on play we were at almost five and a half percent and just cash money market securities around 2022, the Fed is now cutting interest rates and we expect another interest rate cut as soon as tomorrow. So as that starts to lower, we'll reconsider that cash strategy and that 2% allocation. We'll want to be lean and stay fully invested. But when we get to the standing rebalance letter for Salem, I'll go ahead and incorporate some of that and make sure Salem is running with just enough cash to pay benefit payments for about three months. So any questions there on page 12? So page 13, jumping into your market values, on the top left corner.

A question for you. I think we're in a bit of an AI bubble. Got it. Is there any... thought in your mind to decrease some exposure to that or can you?

So I think remember we were 65-35 last meeting and we increased equity by 5% and we went ahead and reallocated to that. Beyond how you're diversified already, AI is affecting the whole market, even on the value side versus growth. You know, growth being the next best thing. Companies with high expected earnings that you're going to pay a premium for, value are your CVS health cares and your pharmaceuticals or your banks. They're also influenced by AI. So can you get away from AI as long as you're invested in equity? I think it's very hard because it is the thing. Companies even unrelated to AI with negative earnings are going through the roof you know challenge companies like bed bath and beyond there's a lot of optimism just like with any bubble so so i don't i don't know if that answers your question i don't i don't recommend a strategic play based on we think we're hitting all-time high so we might have a correction remember it's all baked baked into your strategic positioning we're not going to time the market it's part of it we're going to have ups and downs but in the long term we want to hit that seven percent return target for the plan Does that help, Bob?

Yeah, it does. Thank you.

Great. So on page 13.

There's no chance of taking NVIDIA out of the portfolio.

And also, it's like the AI CapEx cycle is probably a lot longer than next year or the year after that. And although there will be corrections, do you really want to sit on the sideline during any of it? Because you might have a down year, but as we saw the last three years, if you were sitting on the sideline, you're really upset right now. So top left corner started the quarter at $22.2 million. Top right corner ended the quarter at $23.2 million. So up about a million dollars. This came after $200,000 in distributions and about $1.2 million in investment earnings. So a really nice quarter for the plan. Finally, page 16 to the plan results. So up 5.4% for the quarter versus the benchmark at 5.8% and ranking very competitively against your peers in the top 20% of your peers. Fiscal year today, to close out your fiscal year, a third year in a row that you strongly exceeded your return target at 7%. You've got about 12.5% outperforming your benchmark ranking in the top 6% of your peers. You've also beat the FRS's fiscal year return, now three years in a row, and this is the third year in a row that you've had strong double-digit returns.

You wouldn't know off the top of your head the actuarial liability of the fund, would you?

No, sir. I think last time we were discussing it, y'all were about 90% funded, if that helps. But I wouldn't know the exact liability.

They should know. The actuarial liability of the fund, last I looked at it, was around $21 million. Am I... Anybody's memory serve on this?

You're talking about the underfunded portion, right?

No, what I'm saying is the actuarial liability of the fund was $21 million. The market value is $23 million. There are two data points that we need. The way the actuaries work is they don't take the market value at a date. They take an average over five years when they're doing it. But nevertheless, it is good for us to understand what the actuarial liability is against where the fund is today, which indicates that we're quote unquote overfunded. Not that I would do anything, but it's just a data point. I've asked for this a couple of times, just want to make sure we understand it.

Yeah, there's a couple other numbers in that computation, but the last was one point, about 1.3 million we were underfunded. I think we were like at that time we were about 92, 93 percent, but that's probably about a year ago. Yeah.

No, you're right on the money that, yeah, in fact, it's gotten a little worse. programs to be.

I think the average across the state is to be about 70% funded. So if you took the plan smooth market value next to the liability, you'd be about 70%. And that sounds maybe a little rough, but actually you have to remember these plans are perpetual, right? Especially if you have an active plan, you're bringing in new members. it's hard to catch up with that because you're just adding to your liability a lot. So 70% funded across the board, especially against other states, Florida's way ahead of the curve. And the reason for this is when the actuary does your study, projects the plan's liabilities, and comes back to the city and state, the state gives you a certain amount, and then they go to the city and they say, we need this amount plus these investment earnings in order to meet that plan's liability. in the long run right and a lot of and a lot of states when the actuary says we need to map this amount from the city the city can say okay we'll give you half of it so florida is unique in that respect and that's why the plans are so well funded your plan I believe, based on last time, was 90% funded. So y'all are way better than even most plans in the best state of funded ratios. So I think that's good news for the plan. Obviously, this equation, 100% is not always the best answer because if you're trying to bring in employees and you start stop getting contributions from the city and state that could be negative overall for the city so there's kind of a sweet spot where we continue to have a little bit slightly underfunded we're getting we're being a good custodian to our city and not going through their purse too much but also really leaning on our investment earnings which the investment earnings which your plan is doing really well with is a key part of that whole equation So I hope that helps give some context.

And I think that what the actuaries do is do a five-year moving average. So this new number, which is the September 30, which is year-end for us, will then change that moving average. Again, just a data point to think about.

Yeah, and if you look at the last three years of return, double-digit returns, I expect on the next actuarial valuation for you all to have an actuarial gain, decreasing that future liability based on those investment earnings.

Okay?

Thank you. So, honing in on that 6%, top 6% for the fiscal year to date, remember, one is the best, 100 is the worst. If you like college football, you want to be in the top one to six teams, like the Georgia Bulldogs. You don't want to be in the bottom 75 to 100, like the Miami Hurricanes or Florida Gators, right? I hope that doesn't get me in too much trouble. I had one police officer tell me that I might need to be escorted out of the room. So just moving on in the longer trailing time period performance, you can see consistently competitive with your benchmark and peers. I do want to focus on the fiscal year to date column. If you look at total domestic equity up about 17%. So this was the main driver of overall portfolio performance going down to your fidelity large cap growth index. Remember, we're talking about technology. Fidelity Large Cap Growth Index for your fiscal year returned 25.5%. That's just remarkable performance. And you can see that index fund, remember you have passive exposure to this segment of the equity market, ranks in the top 20%. So you're getting cheap exposure and you're beating most active managers. And the reason is this has been a trying space for active management this year, really the last few years. If you look at the quarter return of 10.5%, five stocks drove 80% of that return. So if a manager didn't own those five stocks and as much as the index owned, they weren't looking so good. And really for the fiscal year, for you to get that 12.5% total return, that part of your portfolio had to work, and there's a lot of plans that wish they were looking at this report right now. Coming down to international equity, up 17.5% versus the benchmark, up 16.5%. Coming down to fixed income, Integrity doing a good job, up 4% versus the benchmark, up 3%. So Integrity holds only investment grade bonds, more corporates than the index, but they do a good job with security selection, making sure they're getting enhanced yields versus the index. So that wraps up the plan's fiscal year results, unless there are any questions.

So we were 93% funded, and now we're at 90%. So I said 90%.

I'm not sure if it was 93%.

It definitely has dropped. I understand what Bob said, but I don't see how this is. Why would we not want to be 100% funded and stay that way?

I think it's putting the onus on your investment returns versus your city and state. We could all be 100% funded. It costs a lot. That's why you see corporations, they have this liability on their balance sheet. And by the way, a lot of corporations don't want it on their balance sheet anymore, so they're not doing pensions or defined benefit plans. They're doing participant-directed plans, your DC plans, if you have a 401 , 401 , something like that, because they don't want it on their balance sheet. But what they do is if it's on their balance sheet, and it's messing up their ratios so they can't get money from some lender or whatever, what they'll do is they'll buy very high-quality bonds and go ahead and immunize that from their balance sheet, right? You can do that. It's very costly. This is the most cost-efficient way to do it. And it's not right or wrong. It's like pickleball versus tennis, just two different games, right? And this is kind of the game we're playing, being good custodians to our cities.

Well, the other thing with being fully funded constantly is somewhat of a moving target because the flip side is the employees, the people you have coming in, the people you have coming out, the actuarial feasibility in terms of life expectancy, et cetera. So, I mean, it's to a certain extent, I mean, I think from a common sense standpoint, it's somewhat of a moving target.

I work with a lot of closed plans. They're not active anymore. They have all retirees. They're not bringing in more active members. A lot of those retirees are like, we had a good thing. Why did they dissolve this plan? If you want good people, you want to offer good benefits. If you keep it active and maybe you're not hitting that 100% because you're bringing in good people and they're accruing their own future benefits, that's a good thing. I think You know when you're looking at that 90% funded ratio Maybe it's a little harsh the word like just underfunded. Yeah, you're underfunded But you have to remember the lifespan of this thing is perpetual if our investment earnings do their thing And we still get this steady state and city contributions.

You're gonna be in good shape We know when the next actuarial report will be done

I think next meeting.

Yes, it's going to be in the summer of 2026. The process really starts beginning of the year. In fact, Dina wants to attend the January meeting to talk about when doing the actuarial evaluation, some of the topics that were discussed regarding the assumptions. So she will be attending the January meeting.

Because I know she did not attend this meeting.

She's a speaker at a conference.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. But I do expect good news at that meeting. Either you increased your funded ratio or you hired a lot of great people. Two ways to look at it. So I don't know if that helps. OK. So we'll move on to the red line.

Just one more point. So at that meeting, it was supposed to take place today. Bob, just to clarify, in the minutes, it's in the minutes. So she's going, we're going to go over the factors that put together this valuation.

That is correct. They're going to talk about how they do it and whether it is acceptable to do it that way or we have thoughts that might change it. Right, right, yeah.

And usually, typically, the actuarial evaluation is presented either the end of the first quarter, which that's when you have your meeting, I mean, the beginning of the second quarter. By then, she would probably have the actuarial evaluation to present it. But all the legwork is getting done now until...

So we might see it as early as April.

In April, April. But she'll be here in January so that she can base the actuarial evaluation on what you as the board choose in terms of assumption.

Okay. Because I think it's important that we go through the assumptions with them and make sure that we understand. Because the assumptions affect valuation quite dramatically.

Yeah. I mean, that will drive the contribution by the taxpayers, the whole thing.

Drive the contribution, et cetera.

Yeah, there's a lot of things that go into that computation that arrive at the contribution for the years.

In the minutes, you might ask her to, prior to the meeting, that her presentation be made available. It's a little difficult to have a bunch of pieces of paper dropped on a sort of meeting. For example, the minutes. We just sought this meeting. I really, at least I prefer to see, I prefer to see all these pieces of paper at least a week before so I have a chance to read them and understand them.

So I did do an email last week with all the attachments. We always send the agenda a week before the meeting, and then within a day or two, we send you everything, and that was distributed last week.

Right, but what I'm saying is that it would be invaluable for her to have the same discipline. That's what I'm saying.

Okay, we'll do that.

Great, so moving on to the IPS. We have a red line IPS today, just a few changes. So apologies, they are not numbered. I realize that, but we'll still get through this thing. So just turn one page, and you'll see the red. That's just updating you to your new targets, updating the ranges, figuring out the 70% equity, 30% bonds allocation. You find it, John? Cool. Turning the page until you see a whole lot of red and blue.

Now, if I read these correctly, these are basically statutory requirements.

That's right. So all we're doing is we're bringing your IPS up to speed with all the new regulations out of Tallahassee. So the red is a pecuniary factor law, and I'm a little out of water here. I wish Adam was here to help me, but basically it just says we're going to invest assets based on their potential financial gain, not based on any political reasons or any extra factors, right? Going down in the blue, you have the entities that boycott Israel language, just basically saying you won't hold any securities directly that have opposition to Israel. So if you turn the page one more time, you'll see the red. That's just more pecuniary factor language. Turn the page one more time, more pecuniary factor language. And that brings you up to speed with all the Tallahassee new regulations for public pension plans. Our team, just so you know, our compliance and legal team,

works closely with Adam's team KKJL to develop this language so it's not like we're pulling it from a hat or anything like that question for you yep with Adam not here is it wise for us to to vote to accept this or should we wait until the next meeting um The reason I ask that is because it's a place where my signature is acting chairman at the bottom of it.

No, I understand. So personally, I've had boards sign it when the attorney couldn't make it. Because I'm telling you, we vetted this thing together beforehand. If you want Adam to give his blessing, by all means, I don't think.

So I have Adam on the phone. Would you like to ask him a question? Oh, okay. Hi, Adam.

I think the question, Adam, is that we've been presented with an update of the investment policy statement. and the bulk of it is what I'll call statutory changes from the state. The only non-statutory one is the one we approved earlier, which was an increase in equity from 65 to 70% exposure. Is there any reason that we should not vote on this and sign it today?

Are you also able to hear me as I answer this question?

We have his imposter here.

You have Dave with a little more hair today. I don't know if he's able to hear or not. Adam, this is James Reno. So we updated for pecuniary factor language and then entities that boycott Israel, just so you know what we're adding. of the question is that we can change our investment policy whenever we want. So if you think in three months from now that 70% is too high, you could lower it to whatever you'd want to do.

Yes, Adam, I believe we do have it.

Right, so can everybody look at their packet for that?

No, but it's not in their packet.

No, no, it's not in their packet. Okay, so I'm going to just summarize, and if you could forward to them that memo that was sent out, and long story short, all the administrator has to do is take that template that we gave, and it's the same

Adam, Doug is not here today, but he is handling this aspect or this aspect of the administration. So I will make sure that after the meeting I touch base with Doug and we can talk, you know, if Doug has any questions, he can discuss it with you. But this is something on his desk. Yeah, so please make sure that Doug and he knows what he has to do. Okay. Okay.

Adam, if I can summarize, what you're saying is that it would be advisable to sign the investment policy statement given the timing of the December needs. So therefore, I would put a motion before the board that I sign it, I guess because I'm acting chair.

No, no, I'm not worried about it just okay so I Think we've got the answer Any further discussion all in favor of me signing?

The investment policy statement signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, I'll sign it. Let me add to that there is a second statement that I think is we're telling Salem to rebalance if necessary.

Yeah, so you mind if I do it quick? Yes, please.

So please do that and I'll do this while you're at it.

Okay, Adam. If we need you, can we call you here?

Yes, and then let the trustees know.

Yes, yeah, yes.

Yeah, so this has to do with the debt benefits in our office. and Bob says hello, and he covered that meeting for you.

So that will conclude your terms report, and I will try to find out why it was that we didn't have it on my calendar today, and I apologize.

Okay, Adam, thank you. Thanks, everybody. Okay, bye-bye. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Would you then go to the Salem Trust issue? Yeah. Thank you.

This is the last item for me. So this doesn't really affect Adam. It's more just allowing Salem to be more efficient in how they're raising cash for their plan. And remember, I said the cash interest rate level is coming down, so we're going to get paid less. for holding cash. So we want to be as efficient as possible. And what I did is I reached out to Salem. They pulled your six month average distribution payments and expenses. So per month on average, you pay out about $90,000. So we just want about three months out. So $275,000, just a little over that three month mark, just to give a little cushion. But this is just a... This is just a cash kind of buffer so we can pay out those benefit payments. And what they'll do is if you look at the bottom, the allocation percentages, is they take the proportional allocations to each of your managers and they're able to raise cash based off of that or invest excess cash based off of that. So it's just efficient, lets us run a tight ship.

A motion that I go ahead and sign that agreement with Salem Trust.

I motion.

All in favor, say aye. Aye.

Is this something we're all supposed to sign? No, no.

I can sign as chair. That's why I'm asking the question.

So what I did, I put it on Miami Shore. Oh, okay. And I added the bank, the account number. Okay, thank you so much. You're welcome. So Salem requires that. Okay. So I didn't want to distribute all that. . . . . . . .

Okay. That was my next question. So you want me to go?

This was already approved at the last meeting. This is just, you know, making it formal. And Mariner needs it.

This was the prior approved Mariner agreement. Is it agreed that I sign it as acting chair?

I move that you sign it.

Okay. I'll go ahead and do that while you're... Okay, so this is, all I'm doing is signing a clean copy instead. Okay.

So with all the changes.

So what I can do is I can take this with me, scan it, send it to you, the Salem I need it because then Doug and I also have to sign it. Okay. In order for Salem to accept it.

You'll send me both of those? Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for doing that too.

No, no, you're welcome. And then you'll keep the IPS and you'll send me. Yes, ma'am.

Okay, so you've got the three that you need.

Yeah, I think we're all good. So unless there are any questions, that wraps it up for me. Thank you all very much. I really appreciate all the questions.

And you have much more hair than you had last time.

I hope that trend continues.

I've got to pick on David. Attorney report, obviously, Mr. Yeah, that was it. So we heard the attorney report new business. I think there's a question of the council. is talking about decreasing the size of this group from seven to five members. And I think that the council, at least in my mind, needs to address the question of who sets policy. It's clear that this committee sets investment decisions.

We allocate...

the assets to equity debt, I guess we could buy crypto if we wanted to or something like that. But the second question is that it's often there are policy questions referred to this committee. And if I understood Ms. Keeley correctly, she thought that was improper. And so therefore, the question I put to this group by way of discussion more than anything else is, is it, the function of this group to review policy questions, that is, how the plan is paid out, et cetera, and make recommendations to the council or not. Because I think that then affects the composition. And I don't say this, and Mr. Our manager took umbrage at me at the last council meeting saying that I disparaged the investment input from the village employees. I do not and did not. But my concern is and remains that if we are making policy about how benefits are paid to employees, In my mind, it seems like a conflict of interest. And I'm just being completely honest with you.

And I understand. I agree with you. We're not here to make policy changes. We're not here to make benefits for the employees or not for the employees. We are here to make sure that he's doing his job and she's doing her job. Exactly. It's up to the council and the manager to make decisions recommendations to come and say hey can we afford this uh benefit that i would like to give the employees and then for us to ask the uh actuary or whoever say hey is this affordable can the can our pension withstand that and then that's yes or no you know and then we can say yes it can afford it to the council but it's not up to us to make uh benefit changes my opinion

I think if you were to canvas the pension boards across the country, that there is at least one employee representative on the board to, like Jim is saying, not to say what the benefit is, who gets what, et cetera, but to have a voice.

To make sure he's doing his job and I can go back to my people

I'm going to come from a slightly different... You have to look at our council. We have a fellow that sells pizza and we have a guy who's unemployed and we have a guitar player. We are not qualified to be looking at pensions and deciding if they are in fact the best for our employees that they can be. I noticed that Esmond came here and was the only employee with a 401 program. He subsequently has tried to talk additional employees into and has successfully done so, presented the idea that more people would be eligible to apply for that. Now I notice that the chief of police going to the police pension board is applying to get into that program, which I have No problem with the trouble is I don't know anything about it. Does it cost the village residents more in taxes? Does it cost the same? And where is that information going to come from? and what is an educated advice going to be for the council if it doesn't come from this group, if it doesn't come from people who are knowledgeable in pensions. And I think the 11th thing that's in your requirements to the committee through ordinance is and to do whatever else there is needed.

Can you ask the fiduciary, correct?

Right. So to say that all we're supposed to do, I think our mayor said at the last council meeting, well, you don't do anything here but okay warrants anyway. Video you can do it Because we don't have anyone else in the village to do that and You know, I think Whatever that's enough Is that the manager

wanted more, wanted directors to be eligible to go into a 401 instead of the pension. Is that? That's correct. So the reason that he brought that up, I believe, is because our city has been unique usually, but Lake Managers do not stay 30 years in a city. They come and go every five or six years. We've been unique over the last 25 years that we've had that. It's things I think are changing as it goes. So and we attract older directors. They're not here for ten years to get a benefit So the 401 and they and other cities have the 401 s so they can just move it right to us It's portable that's good for a minute or two older 401 so they can keep their retirement going even though they've switched jobs every five in line with that to be able to attract managers and people to come here.

But the question, if I might, the question that I think they raised is that it's not this group's charge to make policy recommendations. Correct. My reading of the statute is that, in fact, it's precisely our requirement to make policy recommendations.

I thought it was ours to make it, to make the policy recommendation, if asked by the council, not to us to come up with things. I don't think we come up with things and then we make the recommendations.

It would be, let's just say. Because we're fiduciaries. And as a fiduciary, it is my job to look at- Not to make a benefit for the employee.

No, that already exists. Right.

But what I'm saying is a fiduciary, it's my job to look at those benefits and say they are in line with our capacity to fund them, which means that at the end of the day, I have to say this benefit should be increased, decreased, or done away with. And not that the... recommendation of that comes from the Village Council asking us a question because we're simply answering a question. We're not a fiduciary. We're simply responding to it. And my reading, as is George of the statute, is we are fiduciaries. As fiduciaries, it's our job to understand the impact of those benefits on the value. So, it would not be improper for it to come, not that the village. I understand what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. And in fact, the 401A thing was raised up by the manager. And we approved it. But I'm saying that their reading, his reading and his, and Ms. Keeley's reading is it is improper for us to do that from here. And I think we just need a clear understanding, is that our job or is it not? If we're simply to respond to inquiries, That's fine, but we need to understand it. And as long as they're going to be changing the composition of the council, we ought to be clear as to what their job is. And the main thing is we pay for the actuarial work done to make the calculation. I mean, that's sort of where it came from. But if that's the case, then I think we need a clear understanding of it.

Well, and in fact, there's two things we're talking about. And one is we're talking, the first thing we should to be looking at alternatives that could help the employees more. I thought that Esmond took issue with the fact that, or I think he felt that there had been a statement he resented that being said be that as it may whether I interpreted that right or wrong is immaterial but if the 401A is in fact an avenue not just because they're moving location and also then if one of the police officers moved to another city after being here three years, would he not take his 401 with him?

If he had a 401 ?

If he had a 401 as opposed to taking nothing with him under the . . . Well, he would get his . . . He'd get the 3% and the money he had paid in. Yes. But let's say that the 401 had done better than that. For instance, look at the . . .

The only thing with the 401 is the city The employee does not. The employee adds to that 401, but the city has to make it whole.

Well, we don't know how it's written up, though.

No, we don't know, but I'm just saying.

Because there is a deferral part that comes out of your paycheck.

Like the pension for the FRS, I believe that the state has to put in 12%, and the employee puts in 3% to make a total of $15,000. No, we put in six and then. No, I mean the state. I'm looking at the Florida state. Oh, FRS? FRS, I believe is they, I'm not sure. No, I'm sorry. But I believe I read that they put in 12%,

But in a DB plan, if you leave before vesting, you only get out that which...

I never heard of that 6 and 6. Yeah, I don't think it is 6 and 6.

Whatever it is, if you leave before the vesting period, you take your...

The 12 is right, but I don't think it's 6 and 6. No, I don't think so either. I think they put in all of them. No, they're the employees.

No, the employees kick in, of course. I'm not exactly, I can look up the exact. But back to my original question then.

I don't think that, I think the council is interested in helping the employees as much as we possibly can. The question becomes what additional would moving all of the employees to the 401A cost the city in comparison to what it's spending now? Can the taxpayers afford it? And I think that at one point you asked that question, and from the older minutes that I could read, it's never been answered yet.

I think the answer is no, that it would cost the city more money because they have to put in more money.

Oh, I don't mind that it costs just how much more. That's the point.

But it's a whole other document.

Because the city right now is putting in nothing into the pension.

Jimmy, you've got GRS, you've got the attorney, so now you have a DB plan and a 401A plan. And the thing is, it's never been costed out. GRS said specifically back in July, they said, we do not know what, we haven't done a cost study on this. And then how many people are going to participate in the plan? Three people. So you're going to create a whole new plan. And by the way, in the private sector, in my universe, this is discriminatory. You can't do it. Reagan got rid of this in 86. In government, you can do it. for the top-heavy people. In our universe, those are called non-qualified people. It's on the IRS dirty dozen list. So it's not something we even set up. We don't do non-qualified plans. If somebody came to us and said, well, we don't want, everybody would have to participate. I mean, why don't you open this to everybody? Why is it just three people or two people? I don't know.

Tom, one more comment here. Yeah, please.

Okay, I can give you some real-life examples. So I'm retired from the city of Fort Lauderdale. I was the HR director there for almost 14 years. When I came in 2004, we had a general employees plan and a police and fire pension plan, two city pensions. In 2007, as a result of negotiations, we closed the pension plan for new general employees. and we opened up a 401 for any new employees who were hired after, I don't know, it was October 1, 2008. So for that time period, all new general employees, directors, you know, whoever, went into that 401 plan. But one of the things that ended up happening is when they originally created the 401 , it was the city's contribution was based on whatever the city's contribution was to the pension plan. Well, at some point, that ballooned to like, I don't know, 20, almost 36%, and when the auditor realized it, they did an ordinance amendment to say the city's contribution is not to exceed X percent. So they had to bring that in line, and that percentage really was mostly for senior executives. Today they have put general employees, I'm not sure when they did it, within the last five years, now they're in FRS. So they've gone, 401A I think is still an option for senior executives, but for regular general employees they're in FRS. So I think just to go back to what Esmond was saying originally about the 401A, The senior executives, for a variety of reasons, need more mobility. Police officers, generally speaking, they're not leaving after three years. The sworn personnel tend to stay. So unless you're gonna switch it to FRS, which would make people more mobile, I think, I've agreed with Esmond with regard to the 401 . I think having a pension plan that is regulated by our pension board and by the council is good because it is a good benefit. There really aren't any, you know, there are not a lot of defined benefit plans. And just for the record, the state plan, FRS has always done well and was always, not always, but didn't have an issue with funding. And then when they change to make the employees contribute, because employees didn't contribute until, I don't know, the last five to seven years, that 3%. Scott changed it. Yeah, exactly. So the FRS has always been a good plan. I think the pension plans are good when you have a board that you know, I don't want to say knows what they're doing because nobody is an expert. But when, you know, we have picked financial consultants and pension administrators to, you know, tell us regularly, hey, here's what's going on. Here's what you guys have to look for. And we've exercised our fiduciary duty. And when you do what you're supposed to do, you know, if you start investing in crypto and crazy stuff, That's risky. Those things are risky. But otherwise, you know, pension plans for the most part, not going wherever there's wood here, are stable.

Right here. But my point is this. Whose money is it? Is it not the employee's money? And if he wants to invest or she does in cryptocurrency or in real estate or in any of the other investment opportunities, With the 401 , they can do that. With the defined benefit plan, they cannot do that. And so they are, you know, back to what I thought Esmond took issue with, which was, well, they're not smart enough. I'm sorry, I don't buy that. I think that the average person is plenty smart enough to make decisions on how they want to invest their money. And we're taking that away from them. Now, there are also people who are going to say, I don't want to be involved in that, and I don't want to have to do it. I don't think we're, I'm not sure. I mean, first of all, we need to be able to afford it. I can't understand why we can't be given that information, what it would cost us additionally as taxpayers here to be able to fund our portion of these 401As as opposed to as we're doing it as a defined benefit plan. But I don't know. I mean, you all talk to and see. I know this. You're never going to make a lot of money investing in if you take all of your retirement and put it into these defined benefit plans. the idea that and excuse me i'm not trying to be negative and i realize you all are trying to do well but for instance the wall street journal two days ago stated that investment in international investment in stocks has done better for the first time than the standard and poors has uh over the last year and so um and yet in your report today international uh was uh not doing as well well you know i guess we can look into that and and argue it one way or another but um this is their money and i feel that we're that uh if we can afford it that we should be giving the people that opportunity or maybe i mean

Well, but if I might, George, I think I think we go back to the question as to where do these policy recommendations begin? Not that the policy decision isn't at the council, ultimately, which it is. The elected officials, they make that. But do we have the fiduciary obligation, if you will, to look precisely at the issues which... Well, I think you have to because if you don't do it here, where is it going to happen? But... Both and Esmond is not here to either defend or or Agree, but his his statement of Miss Keeling statement was we do not have that capacity to Did you all come together as a committee to

With any ordinance changes, because that's what the council's been doing for the last six months, is looking at ordinances. Look at the charter school, look at the country club, et cetera, et cetera. And so what were the recommendations from this committee as far as how you felt the ordinance should be changed?

I don't think we made a recommendation, but I don't think we saw a change that was needed, and that's my point. We specifically looked at number 11 in that, which talks about our fiduciary duty, and what I'm saying is they're now adopting a change in the composition, We need some clarity then. Are they accepting the statute as still written, or are they changing that as well? And I think that's the question that we need to address to the council. Obviously, if they say we want to change the policy and do this, we can analyze it. Don't have any problem doing that. But at the same time, I think we have the duty to say, no, the policy ought to be this, the policy ought to be that. We ought to do only 401As, or we ought to do only DB, or you know, whatever is in between. Because I think those are valid arguments that we can have amongst ourselves. But I think we need the capacity to say, wait a second, you know, stop this foolishness of the 401As, go back to DB, you know, and not because you asked us, because we've looked at it. We said the numbers just don't work otherwise. That's all I'm saying.

Okay, so now what?

Well, we have no administrator to do the administrator report. Oh, you got it? Okay, all right. We have substituting for.

No, no, no, no problem. So we already covered A, which was executing the Mariner Agreement. Right. We covered B, which is Dina is going to attend the next meeting and discuss that. And then in terms of letter C, I gave you a list as per our last meeting. You have a list of all, at the end of the packet, a list of all the current retirees that are receiving a monthly benefit. And in the last page, you have a list of all the employees that are currently in the drop and are still working. From our last meeting, there were no refunds of contributions to report. And then what I do want to mention is I spoke to Isabelle before this meeting, and she said that Trustee Longman, Trustee Dorsett, and Trustee Williamson's terms have been expired, but that they are to continue to serve until those seats are filled.

i thought what happened on the 30th on the september when i i thought the names were that's forward dated did they not pick or what it's never been presented because um basically elizabeth appealed to the county

The scary thing about, at any rate, the applications have now set a record. The applications for this committee have been open seven months and are still open. And then once she closes that, will be voted on. But the committee, again, and this was Charles, is radically changing. We're going from seven members to five. We're eliminating Esmond and a meeting and that's going to be the makeup

whoever they, you know, wish.

That's kind of... Well, that's what I think, to be honest with you, is wrong with the police board because what happened, of course, is that the fifth person that was picked was a policeman. Well, now it's like the prisoners are running the asylum or the jail. You have three police... And I shouldn't have said it that way, but I'm just trying to... From a political perspective, if you say this to the public, it doesn't look right. It doesn't smell good.

I kind of agree with you. I'm not disagreeing.

No, okay. And so the same This is what I assume it came from Esmond to Charles. My concern is that we're going to end up with a committee that nobody knows anything and with a group of people who have no you know I like to see knowledge continue the longer you do this the more you learn about it and the more educated you become and I see us losing that but whatever I mean you know what you could do is a committee is you know, come forward and make a statement and, you know, that you're opposed to the idea that they're changing the composition of it.

The only thing I do like is, as an employee, that other employees would like to talk, you know, from what I hear from employees, you know, people that work here, a manager does not want to talk to they want to be able to talk to somebody that's manager level. In public works, you have the guys that are doing the work and everything want a representative of them so they have somebody to come and talk to about pension and different things. So I think the board should be made up of a general employee, a little higher up you know that the management team could come and talk to them and feel comfortable and then you know the citizen you know i like the council a council person on there i think you just you just have i don't want to say the ear of the council but you know they're in the meeting well again if i if i i couldn't agree with you more we did not have any other

committee except this one that didn't come forward with recommendations on how they wanted the ordinance changed for their committee. And so what's happened is you all never came forward with one.

Me personally, I didn't know we were having this.

But see, that's just crazy that that's the way we're operating, and that's my whole point. This becomes a matter of communication, and the information is being given that they want given, and the information they don't want given is not given.

Is this something that we, and me and Johnny are employees here, go to our people and say, listen, they're wanting to change this committee, our pension committee, to this and this, are you guys up for it and have people come and talk on behalf of the city?

At the next council meeting, if in fact it's going to be on the agenda.

I think that's something that should be done.

Personally, I couldn't agree with you more. I don't think we're going in the right direction here. as long as our hearts are all in the same place, and that is let's come up with the best possible retirement program that we can, that this village can be proud of that, but we have to be able to afford it. We have to be able to afford it, but the idea is to come up with the best one we can, and the more input from different groups that we have for that, the better. We're shrinking a committee that, in my opinion, ought to be growing to represent the various groups just like you just said. I really think this is...

I mean, I like there's more people. I like people on the plan... I would like to see three employees, to tell you the truth, and four of whatever. I like the seven people, but the reason I like the three employees, you could have somebody representative of management or directors, you could have somebody representative of supervisors, and then somebody

I've got a question.

I'm one of those us people, I guess.

I have an answer for everything you just said. Good. Where are we at with the RFP process? Because I'd like to get that out to some people. That's Adam. Why is Adam in control of that? We're the board. I don't understand.

No, no, no, no. Adam presented to the board the templates.

Yeah, I have them.

Right. And I believe that...

Float those and get people to the next meeting.

And I believe he's... Yeah, we'll have to ask Adam. Honestly, that's on...

Send you an email and let's initiate that process. Can you send me an email, Tom, please? Yes.

Send me an email requesting and I'll go to Adam.

Okay. Thank you. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Not that we would change, but every once in a while you look at it.

A lot of these problems where there's a constant attack on the plan document is because there's no education. There's nobody, again, I guess at this point I'm pointing it at the actuary, not the custodian, the actuary and the attorney. And we rarely have attorneys in any of our meetings, rarely is there an actuarial issue. So it's basically, it's really an education, I think, from our actuaries. They have to explain to you. This is really technical stuff. Like, for instance, if you look at this drop, I don't know if anybody noticed this, but Angela's drop is wrong. It's got nine years. It should be eight years. So it's just a little identifying stuff like that. And this guy on here, Jim McCoy, he shouldn't be on here.

I'm kidding.

The other thing is, like, if you take our act world, which came up before the last actuarial report, And we talked about this overfunded, underfunded thing. I don't know if you know this, we've always been overfunded. Since 1991, 106, 92, 103, 93, 103, 100, 103, 105, 105. It goes all the way down to guess what year? 2008, when the market took a crash. Now we're down to 87%. We've caught up a little bit. Now we're about 93%. But this is technical stuff that you guys may not know. But you serve a purpose here. I get this. But some of this stuff, I've got to call my actuaries on because it's very, very technical. For instance, in the next meeting, when we're going to try to challenge and reduce the taxpayer, I mean, your benefit doesn't change. The calculation is the calculation. But When we're going to look at, you know, investment returns, you know, if they have 7%, why isn't it 8%? That's a real number. Or inflation or decrements, that's people leaving. Those things have to be challenged, and that sways that number that April mentioned too. It's a swing number on the contribution by the taxpayer, whether that's 400 or 450 every year, into the suit. But at the end of the day, you guys are paid out what you're going to be paid out. The factor is the same. But some of this stuff is really, really technical. And I think the biggest problem I see right now is education at our meetings. Educating, like, for instance, the Eric Wilson thing. That's very unfortunate. But I have a solution for that. It's probably too late, is looking at the gap between your pension benefits, should you die early, and your life insurance. cheap and that could be part of your comp package for all you guys and guess what she would have got paid 100 of the life benefit tax free she would have got whatever whatever her you know you move up the value about a half a million or 750 or a million we have to cost that out that would be the village manager's responsibility and factored in the comp plan that way we wouldn't have to touch the pension plan It just seems like it's constantly under threat. People are trying to raid, rob, and leverage the pension plan. The pension plan is being blamed. It's just a document. It's like changing the rules at halftime during a football game. It's just not fair. The way I look at the Eric Olson thing, it's how does this affect everybody else? And it's not passed yet, so I don't know what the final thing is. I don't want to get into that now, but there's an unfairness for people. What if someone dies at 24 years of service or 23 years of service, 22 years of service? But it's not in the plan document, Jim. It's never changed before. Well, right. Why? Because there's a solution. We've got to look. It's kind of like looking away from the ball in basketball. We've got to look outside the plan document and stop blaming the plan. Because look at what we're spending to the attorneys and GRS. The fees. We're closing in on $200,000. That's 1% of our plan assets. It's unheard of. We should be at half of that. My plans are very, very economical. There's a lot of technical stuff in here. I'd like to get the RFP going so it gives you guys, the participants, the board, and the council, they could go there and get both sides of the argument, not just, oh, we'll make the change, and then they're billing the hell out of us.

Tom, if I, that's my opinion. Tom, if I, if I might. That's my opinion. Do I take it it's a sense of this group that decreasing the size of the committee from seven to five isn't in our best interest?

Second that. I'd agree.

then what I would say is that we expressed to the village council that we believe that it should stay at seven people and that the extent that we can be there when it's being discussed.

Well, that's fine, too.

That's a two-part thing.

I agree to the question. Do we want to first say, look, leave it at seven, then come back with recommendations to how to structure? as opposed to trying to figure that out here. Because I personally have a little problem with the fifth person being elected, because they represent neither the employees or the taxpayers. What's their skin in this game?

I kind of agree with you. I do a number. Sitting up here basically has skin in the game.

Yeah, exactly. This would mean changing the ordinance, right? That's what we're talking about. That ordinance would have to be changed.

Well, they're talking about changing it. Exactly.

They have not voted on the committee yet. Right now, this vote, the discussion is the ordinance that regulates this committee. Yes. Right. Exactly. And so, again, Jerome allowed no discussion, basically. He said, I believe we should change the committee to five people, as I already stated. Right, right, right. And that was it. You know, I mean, it's... Whatever. I think our sense of the meaning. Please, George. And that is this, where does COLA fit into this?

Cost of living adjustment?

We have no COLA in the pension now. We have no COLA. Right. But there's a COLA for, it's not in the pension, but there's a COLA for all the employees. That's completely separate than this.

That comes through the budget.

But doesn't the pay in turn, those last three years, affect what the pension is?

Correct. There's no COLAs in the pension. When they say you're getting $100 a month, you get $100 a month until you die.

I understand that. I'm just saying that my reading of it, what a person is getting is based on the highest three, not necessarily the last. The last three years. It's usually the last.

Your last three years are usually your highest.

They're usually the highest. So the last three years, that's what it's based on, and COLA is affecting what that amount of money is. And so what I'm... I'm wondering or just I'm looking for some education. I think there's some confusion on what COLA is. The federal government just came out, Social Security, the COLA is 2.8%. And yet our council just voted that it would be 3%. And then I was told by Esmond that it varies from place to place around the country.

I work for Broward County, we got 2%. When I worked for the city of Fort Lauderdale, it was based on, I don't know, the manager came up with some formula that it should be based on with the, you know, whatever. But everybody's got a different.

But I think George's question is a logical one. You know, 2.8% is, you know, the federal standards used in most places, why do we vary?

Well, exactly. In other words, 38% of the residents in this village are retired. A lot of them are depending on Social Security to live on, and the federal government, it doesn't vary whether you live in Washington State or Florida, if you're on Social Security, you're going to get a COLA of 2.8%.

Right, but for the local government, what the employees depend on... That has nothing to do with what we're doing here. Right, it depends on what the government can afford.

It does indirectly, though, because Georgia's argument is if we had a higher COLA, it would then affect the pension plan itself because you'd have to account for more dollars being paid in those last years.

in that time, too. It's the same.

I'm aware of that.

But it depends. It's going to depend on what the government can afford. Because your local government is paying, what is the village paying toward health insurance? Their total benefit package. And so what can they afford? So sometimes you can afford 1.5% for a COLA. I work for the County. We're getting 2%. I mean, a couple years ago, we got 3%. So I think that just depends on what the the local government can afford.

There's times that the state has gave 5% and then your Social Security goes up, but then your Medicare went up 3%, so you only got 2%. It means nothing with this, really.

But if I can just sort of summarize our, I think our view is that we oppose decreasing the size of the committee and expect to come back with some thoughts about composition in the future.

Of the pension plan. Mr. Scott can have something put out to the employees and get some input from everybody, not just, you know, the residents too. I mean, like I said, everybody that works here and lives here has skin in this game. This is all something that's,

And I go back to the key point that we, in fact, did not make any recommendations as to changing our charter, and our charter is seven. So therefore, you know, the council saying we're going to change it to five is sort of a willy-nilly decision on their part.

That's their will. Again, let me just say this. I just think they need to hear the will of all of us. If you didn't go to the council meeting at the last meeting when it was the library board and Esmond wanted to change the language or the ordinance for the library board, There were 30 people every one of these chairs were full and there were people outside and to a person They said we don't want this done. We want it to stay the way that it is and based on that I promise you you changed the council vote which was going to be in favor of what had been recommended so having the people come is critical. I agree.

Or at least have a representative of each group of people.

Also, I think that it was not a, certainly I didn't see it on the agenda of the last council meeting when this was proposed to change the size. I mean, that just came out of the blue.

Well, that's one of my problems. Again, that's communication.

But the clerk should be posting all of this because there's no requirements.

Well, it wasn't posted because, in fact, it wasn't thought of. It just came off the top of the set. We're going to change it to five. It came out of nowhere.

Well, that can't happen.

Well, no, it was a motion that I put on because the motion was what should the... Why have we not put on the docket to vote for the members? Why have we not closed the nominations and then allowed us to vote on who the members of this board are going to be? Because we're all sitting here in limbo. Exactly. Exactly. All of the things that we're talking about now are eligible to be changed at your next meeting.

And then he raised the point, well, let's change the size of the board. That's what I'm saying. Your question was agended, why are we not voting on the new members? And his response was, we're going to change it to five people, which came out of the blue. And that's my point.

Yeah. Do you guys have a board attorney that sits in the meetings? Because that's part of the way that you steer the discussion. I mean, again, I go back to notice. Any of these changes that are this significant have to be noticed by the clerk. They can't just do a pocket item.

If I remember correctly, the attorney, the village attorney, said nothing.

Yeah, it blind signed at all that's that's that's the problem it just came out of the blue I

Well, and I really believe that if you would come and explain how you would like to have each division, I think that's a great idea that would be represented. And, you know, I mean, I don't know where – I don't know what – this was all set up ahead of time. I know that because Jerome just came up with this. There was no discussion. He came up with it out of the blue. And he didn't allow any discussion, all in favor, and that was the end of it.

I think the seven is good because of the quorum, which makes it better. One misses, we're in trouble. But I would just like to see a vote by employees and some residents or whatever on what makes up the council.

And again, I think that's a policy thing that we can make a recommendation on.

I agree. But once we know that there's going to be five, seven, ten.

Yeah, exactly. Let's get seven and then talk about that allocation.

We can't go no more. We only got seven chairs. Yeah.

That's most logical.

That's the most common sense. Yeah.

Let the physicality rule. Are there any other things I think we will try to be at that council meeting?

Watch the agenda.

Is it the next one or whatever one it is?

Hopefully they'll put it on the...

I'll make a...

Better that you put that in because... I can do that.

Yeah. Other things to come before us? A motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Thank you, Mr. Reno, for being here.