Police Retirement Pension Board - Regular Meeting

calling me in order trustee Coop present trustee Mauldin trustee Reynolds here trustee Vargas present trustee Magoo Also present, Adam Levinson from Klossner, Kaufman Jensen, Dave West from Mariner, Doug Falcon, and myself, Yolanda Shea from FHA-TPA. All right, call me in order.

Trustee Cook? Present. The recording's on, so it's going to play back over all of us, so we've got to make sure we turn it down.

Trustee Reynolds?

i don't see any public comments so i guess we'll move on to number three mr west all right good afternoon everyone uh

I have to preface this meeting with I have no clairvoyance. I don't know if we should be zigging or zagging in here. This is an extreme period of uncertainty, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised when you see how well this program has held up. in this market environment. I do have one recommendation, though, and that's going to be to stay the course here. Obviously, tariff talk is front and center news, and it's taken markets to the extent now where everyone is concerned about a potential COVID crisis. like supply shock to the system. I like to track certain leading economic indicators and one of those which I think is really valuable is watching what's going on in the maritime industry for shipping. And right now, about 40% of the ships going back to China are what they call empty container ships only. And this constitutes about, again, 40%. This is hugely significant. So you've got ships coming from China. dropping off goods in the U.S. out in the West Coast, and they're going back with empty containers. We're also seeing a lot of cancellations forward for forward orders. So the shipping industry is getting ready to really throttle back. Obviously, this is significant to the Longshoremen Union, you know, over there on the West Coast. And it's potentially disruptive to truckers and everybody moving this. We've been we've seen this before. Right. Same thing happened during the covid supply shocks there. So, you know, we're seeing the beginnings of the implications there. of what might happen if we don't get some resolution to the trade talks. So needless to say, equity markets have been all over the place. Fortunately, we had a nice market rally on the tail of the Trump tweet that he is not going to terminate Fed Chairman Powell, right? And then around the same time, there was a tweet that came out that he's looking at backing off on some of the China tariffs that he was suggesting there. So we had a huge market rebound on that. But the issue here is this is a lot of noise. Nothing is trading on fundamentals. Nobody knows what the fundamentals are going to be. No business can plan. I'VE GOT A GOOD FRIEND THAT HAS A WORLDWIDE SPORTING GOODS MANUFACTURING COMPANY AND HE SPECIALIZES IN, IT SOUNDS TRITE BECAUSE IT'S A FOCUSED MARKET BUT IT'S THE REALITY OF THE SITUATION, HE FOCUSES ON windsurfing sails, kiting. You know, he's got a name brand that's worldwide, and he has all his stuff manufactured in China. And over a beer, we're talking, and he's like, I'm asking, so are you going to relocate your sail loft manufacturing plants to the U.S.? And he's like, there's no way. I can't possibly do that. It would take me two to three years to set up. And even if we did set up, I can't possibly get anything done because the wages over in China are a fraction of what it would cost me to do here. So it's still going to be more profitable for me to pay the tariffs and pay the shipping, get the containers over here or wherever they have to go. So this is just one close to home example. Also, I don't mean to stay on the personal examples here, but I had ordered some high-tech surf booties, dive booties from a very small company. great R&D on their product, really great product, but they get them manufactured in Vietnam. So I recently received an opportunity to take advantage of inventory in stock as they were warning us that they're going to be increasing prices to their goods that they're receiving from Vietnam by a minimum of 10%. So just kind of some real-life stuff that's just starting To go on here. So on a grand scale Economists are very very concerned that we're heading for a economic slowdown and recession and You know that that's where we are The Fed has come out and stated that you know, they're on standby. You got to see where got to see where everything goes and But if we do have inflation and the economy does slow down, the Fed really can't do anything, right? Because one of their mandates is to keep inflation under control, but it's also to keep employment up. And the other major concern here is that we might be headed for a period of stagflation, which is inflation with no economic growth. So that's the worry on the market. That's what's causing all the volatility here. And again, at this juncture, nobody knows whether to zig or zag in here. So my bottom line recommendation for today's meeting is stay the course. So let's take a look at... The actual results here. And the data here obviously is for March. It's a little bit old, but I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations to get us updated. If you go to page 16 and take a look at the top line item there, the all-important number is the fiscal year to date, right? And I'll just wait until everybody gets there. The physical year today is from October or is it from January? Correct, 10-1. Yeah, so this is you, right? This is your fiscal year end. You don't care about calendar, so I'm talking about what you need to know. So fiscal year to date through March, the program was down 0.89%, or just under a percent. That was the first shoe. The second shoe fell the first week of April, and that's what caused all the upheaval. So during April, we calculated from the peak in equities to the trough in equities. That was a 20% correction. That was significant. But then we've had a rebound for reasons I just mentioned. So now we're looking at about a 10% correction as far as the index goes. Now, believe it or not, by my back-in-the-envelope calculation, I took Friday's closing values from the custodial statement And through Friday anyway, from March, the close of March to Friday, the April returns for this fund are somewhere between a minus 2.5 to 2.75 percent. I'm sorry, minus 1.75 percent. So add that to the 0.89 and fiscal year to date, we're down 2.5 to two and three quarter percent, which considering all the noise, all the concerns, the wealth destruction that's been going on, this system is holding up pretty well. I was surprised I had to go back and redo that calculation and make sure we have everything correct here. So let's talk about why we're holding up.

So do you still think, are we still, you think, number 37 among a total of all the funds that attract that number?

Yes. Yeah, that's a fresh number.

So that's still, I mean, we're still at the top.

Oh, absolutely, yeah. And, yeah, now that number is through March, right? So, the peer group percentile for periods in March, to your point, yeah, your 37th percentile, one being best, 100th being worst. For the one-year, you're 29th. The three-year, you're top seventh. Five-year, you're in the ninth percentile. And the inception number, which includes a whole lot of legacy stuff, which goes all the way back to 2001, right? We're reporting all that data that's not really relevant to what this board's been doing. But yes, those are the peer groups and happy to say we've come a long way since 2001 and the 73rd percentile ranking there So that address question So let's take a look at what's driving some of our defense here and bring your eyes down to the total domestic equity. So as you guys are well aware, we've got value running left court and we've got growth running right court, right? So, well, if you drop your eyes down to the Fidelity Large Cap Growth Index Fund, Remember, we replaced the manager. We went 100% index. It's the magnificent seven stocks, the tech stocks that make up that index. And we had that discussion that really took the brunt of the decline. So that group on that side of the court was down almost 10%. However, go a couple line items up there, and you can see the Boston Equity, who was our active manager, And they are actively managing value stocks. Value stocks as an index were up 2.14%. And Boston Equity, the value manager in play there, outperformed by almost a percent, up 2.93%. So that was a really nice volatility offset there by having both growth and value represented in the portfolio. Do you have a question for me?

Okay, so the more, you know, we talk about this, the more familiar we become. The Russell 1000 value index, how does that differ from the Russell 1000 plain index? 1000 index is the 1000 largest companies, right? So what is the 1000? Largest value index company.

Yeah, great questions. So Quick and dirty definition of the indexes, right? So we happen to be using the Russell family and The 1000 stocks means it goes from the largest 1000 to all the way down to the smallest mid cap stock, right?

The thousand largest companies right period right not accounting for any any any particular industry, etc. It's just the 1,000 largest companies.

Right, it's a capitalization screen purely. That's it.

Okay, so what is the value index? How does that differ?

So the difference between the value index and the growth index, so the value index applies all these fact screening factors that you would use if you were a value stock manager. And let me give the simple example.

If you're a growth stock manager, right,

All you care about is earnings growth, earnings growth, earnings growth, right? And on the value side, you're more concerned with valuation, like book value, various other, you know, price-to-earnings ratios. You want fair or you're very conscious of value.

Okay, so give me a few of those. What would be in there that would be a value that wouldn't be – It wouldn't be in the regular 1,000 largest.

So from an industry standpoint, the value would be heavier weighted in defensive stocks, so like consumer non-durables. Utilities? utilities would be under that category. And I think the single biggest differentiator is between the growth and the value, not state the obvious here, but there's minimal exposure to technology. Oh, okay. Growth is all technology, the high growers, right? And value is very, very minimal. And the tech stocks that would be in the value index were downgraded from the growth index to the value index because they just weren't meeting those parameters. Does that make sense?

Yeah, you did. Obviously, Boston Company had moved some into value stocks, obviously, for them to hold up like this.

Yeah, they are exclusively your value stock manager. Oh, I didn't know that. Yep. So part of their screen and the reason they were hired and we gave them the position on the team is they exclusively run up and down that value population. You'll never see them go into growth. If they do, we're going to be asking them why because that's not what we're paying them to do. So between the two, we've got cross-court coverage. And when one is zigging, the other one is zagging. And it gave us some very nice diversification. And just for discussion, take the extreme case. I mean, everybody remembers the tech wreck back in 2000. All that comes to people's mind was the wealth destruction that happened with technology stocks. Hyper growth companies supposedly, right, that got completely annihilated. But what people don't realize during that period of time, value stocks actually delivered a positive return. So learning from the past, we're making sure we've got our portfolio here diversified to minimize that volatility but still capture the returns of the equity market. Yes, thank you. Okay. So now let's keep going here. Another reason we have international equities is for diversification, right? And finally, for the first time in a long time, international equities and you're in the index fund here. delivered a positive six point eight seven percent and a Couple things going on here a couple quarters ago. We were talking about packing our bags for Europe, right? Because I could buy a euro for like a dollar two cents or so and And backtrack to where we are as of, let's say, Friday. For me to buy one euro, now I have to fork out $1.15, and that's a massive depreciation in the US dollar, right? But as US investors investing overseas, that shows up as a gain for us as investors, and also the local markets are performing very well as people look ahead to this whole Supposed reconfiguration of you know global trade dynamics, so International like point here international equity provided a nice positive return. So check another box and then drop down now to page 17 And the integrity bond fund there providing some modest outperformance. And again, as you all are aware, since we're taking a little more risk in our equity allocation, right, percentage-wise, we wanted to make sure that our bond allocation here maintains its conservatism that's worked really well and it worked really really well in April because lesser quality bonds this will show up in the next report lesser quality bonds in April started to underperform pretty significantly but you're in high quality only here with this with this bond manager mandate so you've got that not to overuse the The same but you know you get that anchor to the wind with that fixed income portfolio so nice returns coming out of out of that. So, you know, all in, you know, pretty nuts and bolts portfolio here. Everything seems to be working to plan. You know, if we get a third shoe and, you know, everything goes to hell in a handbasket, you know, not much additional that we can do here except to know that we have that solid bond portion in the portfolio and we can look to rebalance. So, you know, you're in pretty good shape considering the wealth destruction in place here. I think another important, not to be too long winded, but I think another important point here, which you guys understand as trustees, But a lot of people outside this room don't get. The wealth destruction has been serious, right? If you have $1 and you lose 50%, you now have 50 cents to work with. So you need the market to return 100% just to get you back. And this is the fundamental issue that plagues pension systems funding. And that's why it's so important to have a properly diversified portfolio, a reasonable actuarial required rate of return, and to have the sponsor, the village, you know, keep putting money because we need money to make money. And that liability continues to accrue at the actuarial required rate of return. regardless of what's going on in the marketplace. So a critical concept. So all this volatility is very erosive to market value. And unfortunately, I think it's very unnecessary, but it is what it is. So any questions on the returns? Right. So let's talk about the asset allocation as we always do if you go to page 12. Bottom line, I have no recommendations for any actions here. I think the best thing we can do is stay the course, ignore the noise. We are long-term investors. The system is in perpetuity. And we have a very disciplined program set up and with agreed parameters for the minimums and maximums. That mainly pertains to equities. And if we had knee-jerk and sold, who knows, maybe if we sold when the S&P was at 5,000, which was a critical support level, we would have missed the bounce, right? Because now the market's at 55, 5,600. So we want to ignore the noise, keep our long-term program in place, We do have active managers on the front line. They're also ignoring the noise and investing for the longer-term prospects of the individual companies and equities that they're in. And then to the extent we're in index funds, we are subject to the whims of the market. But, you know, over time, taking a long-term view, historically, would suggest we will get through anything. Over the last hundred years, there's been periods of time way worse than this, with uncertainty way higher than this, and we've managed to grind through everything with our system as it's in place. i have no action recommendations right now uh you know we did the heavy lifting with uh manager changes whatnot and uh we had done a rebalancing uh you know previously a couple of quarters ago i suggest we stay the course any questions All right. So that brings me to my administrative matter. We discussed briefly at the last meeting and... the uh i'm under a little pressure here to respectfully request a one-time adjustment to our fee and i tried to as you know we're all about transparency so i tried to lay everything out here which i will go through line by line here so you know where we are and where we're trying to go if you look at the right hand column there the legacy fee

You have the handout? Everybody have the handout?

Okay. Back in, we were actually retained, as you all know, back in 2008, 2009, right? Just before the first financial crisis. And at that time, I was a managing partner of the Bogdan Group, and we formed the Bogdan Group with the express interest of operating with full transparency and charging a hard dollar fee for our clients and no revenue sharing. We don't get a piece of anything from anybody, mutual funds or anything. We wanted a squeaky clean business model. You guys saw that and that's when we were retained. Then in 2016, we did come before you and request a fee review. And we were granted, I think at that point we were at $22,000. And you also granted us a 3% per annum, call it a COLA, I guess, for our fee. So that brings us up to April 28th of 25th. And our fee had grown to $27,868 per annum. And that equates to roughly seven basis points, right? We talk about the mutual funds being a percentage of fees. But as I said, I want to make sure it's perfectly clear. We are charging you an agreed hard dollar, right? We don't charge a percentage. Every other vendor in the investment management, even other consultants, your custodian, they're all charging you a percentage of assets. So when your assets go up, everybody gets a raise except us. We've got to keep our... our fee on the agreed hard dollar fee. So that means periodically I have to come before you and request any changes to the fee. Now, I haven't been before you since 2016, so I am coming today to request that we adjust our fee, a one-time adjustment, to $30,000 up from the $27,868 I think you'll agree that's a pretty minimal adjustment. We did have discussions about potentially going video teleconference for some of the meetings. If you're of the mind to grant that, we would be willing to completely eliminate that 3% COLA just to the adjustment and we're done. And we would guarantee whatever's decided for three more years there. So I wouldn't have to come before you for three more years for the adjustment. So again, in the interest of transparency, when you're looking at all of the fees that you're paying, if you reference, let me get the page in the book here. If you reference page 47. So bottom line there, you can see your total fund, those are all the fees that you are paying the managers in percentage terms, right? Everybody on that list is paid a percent of assets. So everybody's getting a raise when things go up, which has been the case over time. However, that being said, your total fund expense is 23 basis points, a quarter of a percent. So if you add on our adjusted fee, we're keeping you right around seven basis points as we are now. And our proposed fee takes us up to 7.5 basis points. That's the equivalent adjustment. We're still charging our dollars. But if I did the math, right, it comes out to 7.4 basis points. So your total expenses for your consultant and your investment managers annually are right around or right at 30 basis points. We encourage you to check if you need to with your actuary, your auditor. This is a massively competitive fee schedule set. And that's part of our job is to make sure the investment managers, when you're in the lowest possible share class, part of our job, keep it down.

For the minutes and for those listening, when we say basis points, these are hundreds of a percent. So if you could just translate that, 33 basis points is a third of a percent.

Thank you, Adam. Yeah, 33 basis points roughly equates to a third of a percent, or actually it is. 0.33333, right? So I'll leave that for trustee discussion. So what are you asking for?

You're asking for a raise to $30,000, and if we don't require you to be here at every meeting, then we will lock in that fee for three years?

Is that what you're saying?

That's what you want?

Yeah.

It won't go up for three years. So it's locked in. You don't have to come here, and you get your raise to $30,000.

We'll do the meeting. Yeah, we're still providing the same. The only thing that changes is you're giving us the option of attending. We have to attend one meeting a year, and that's the meeting with the actuary doing the annual evaluation. That's critical.

So you'll be here one meeting a year with the actuaries, and otherwise you're going to be on video.

I'll be on video at every quarterly meeting, right. Alternatively, we'll keep the COLA in place. We'll get the one-time adjustment, but we'll keep the COLA in place, and we'll be here in person every meeting. Your option needs to be what works for you all.

Any further discussion?

I don't see that we would miss much if he weren't here, if we had him on video. What do you guys think?

Well, the paperwork and everything that we get printed out, who provides that?

Yeah, the only thing that changes is I'm up there rather than here.

Awesome, and we get these every meeting. Everything's the same. We'll mail it to you. You would mail it, okay.

Right. Yeah, we previously discussed this. I don't know if you were at that meeting or not, but we had previously discussed switching to Zoom just for simplicity reasons and travel, stuff like that.

We had several discussions.

Okay, yeah, it was something like that.

We beat a horse here, didn't we?

No, it's fine. They're all blending together, though, all the meetings. All right, do I have a motion? Okay.

I'D LIKE TO MAKE A MOTION TO ACCEPT THE PROPOSED FEE CONTRACT BY MARINER AT 30,000. I'LL SECOND.

I HAVE A SECOND.

And I'd like to amend the motion to say that we will have Mr. West here once a year, otherwise he's on video, and that we do not have a COLA for three years. Did I say it right?

Yes. That motion is accepted. Do I have a second for that motion?

Is that for the next three years or is that for three years after the first year is over?

So, oh, thank you. So I'm gonna negotiate with it in your favor right now. You see at the proposed fee, there's a footnote there to make this effective this fiscal year. Let's just make it effective as of this meeting. rather than making it retroactive to 10-1 of 24. So it would be effective as we start accruing, billing April, well, it would be April 1st, yeah. April 1st, yeah.

Okay, so basically the next review of the fee would be 26, 27, 28? April 28. April 28, it expires. Yeah, yeah.

Simple and easy.

Yep.

Yep. Okay. Okay, so motions on the table. Do I have a second?

I'll second.

I'm out of seconds. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye.

All right. Thank you, everyone, and I appreciate your continued support, and it's been a pleasure working with you all these years as we grind through the good times and the challenging times. I appreciate your considerations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is Dina going to be joining? Is Dina, she's here?

Yeah, Dina is online. She's online? And she hears us. She can hear us? We can't hear her. Let's see. Yeah, she's speaking.

Dina, if you can hear us, can you?

Raise your hand.

IT yeah. Yeah. And yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

I may come down, but you've given us the option. Yeah. We'll miss you.

Oh, hold on. I'm getting a call from Dina. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Yeah, Dina, we can hear you. Good. All right, am I speaking now or is Adam speaking? Nope, it's you, Dina. Dina, we're on you. Yes, we can hear you. Yes, we can hear you. Everyone, can you hear me?

Okay.

Hi, everyone. I actually don't have anything to present. I'm just here to touch base on the status, I guess, of the valuation. It's not ready yet. We just got the census data recently, and we're still waiting on financial statements.

So that valuation will probably be ready by July meeting.

And I did send an updated SO HAVE WE CAUGHT UP WITH

Speaking in the present tense.

I think you might be muted now.

Yeah, it's delayed. Adam had a question. Go ahead, Adam.

So, Dina, I'm not sure how this is going to work, but I wanted to assist the trustees as we go through the SPD. So I want to first thank the chair and everybody else for reviewing it and discussing it with Dina.

Is she speaking in the present tense?

Where is she? Is she in another country or something?

I wonder if we could just speak to her on the cell phone and mute the, though it's being recorded, right, for the meeting, but speak to her on a cell phone. Would that make sense or no?

Yeah, because if we run the speaker, we get the delay. But if we don't run the speaker, we can't hear her. Do you want to call her?

527-1616, assuming that she's in her office. And Dean, if you can hear us, is that the number we should call? 527-1616?

We can hear you, but there's a very long delay, so we're going to try and skip the delay and just talk to you on the phone. I'm going to put my phone up here.

Testing. One, two, three. Yep. Can you hear me?

Okay. Okay, hi.

I'm here to give a status update on the actual evaluation. We received the census data recently, and we don't yet have the financial statement draft for this year in 2024. So, you know, we're in the early stages of preparing the actual evaluation. I expect it will be ready around the same time as last year for the July meeting. It was requested that we update the summary plan description for the recent plan change to the drop to extend the drop period from five years to eight years. So we sent that out a few days ago. The summary plan description is that document that you hand out to all the participants user-friendly description of all the plan provisions. So we updated for that. The plan changed to the drop extension. We also updated the last couple of pages at the end of that document that have the actuarial information and financial information in them. And we worked with Josh to review the summary plan description. We also opted for the change to the collective bargaining agreement, which allocates 50% of the annual state money to the share plan and 50% to the village. So that change is included now in the latest SPD draft. So if there's any questions on SPD draft, I'd be happy to answer them.

I'm just going to point out to the trustees, and I don't know if Dina can hear.

If you want, take the phone.

If everybody's looking at it together, go to page 10. And these are what Dean just mentioned. So on page 10, now for drop, you can go with 25 years of service, but not to exceed 33 years of service. And the drop is now eight years. It used to be five years. It's now not to exceed eight years. So that's on page 10. And the other change that she made, among others, that she just mentioned, is towards the back, And this has to do with the share plan money. And this is under the share plan section, which is on page 15. And you see on page 15, in the middle of the page on 15, a new collective bargaining agreement was signed. And it talks about how 50% of the annual state premium gets put into the share plan. So those are the two material changes. Everybody see where that is? Yeah.

Yeah, we have it there

so trustees I am comfortable with approving it I know the city wants to have it so the membership the HR director wants you to have an SPD which can go out and I'm thanking the chair and others and Dina for going through some of the questions the chair asked and I'll just give you an example of one of the questions so the ordinance ordinance mentions and this deals with employee contributions one of the questions that Josh asked in the in the document which had the questions in it was the employee contributions what interest did the employees get on their contributions if they leave before vesting and if they take out their employee contributions and when you look under the section dealing with I'll tell you what page it is Under contributions to the plan, page 5, everybody see contributions to the plan? And it mentions under you, it says interest is credited at a rate of 3%. Everybody see that on page 5, contributions? So the question was asked by the chair, where is that coming from, 3%? And the answer is that the ordinance mentions that 3%. So that's an example of where that's something that's in the ordinance. And from time to time, I have to go back and double check. These are the sorts of things that we can change, where 3% is a conventional interest rate that's not uncommon. So again, I'm very comfortable if you wanted to approve it today. I know the city is going to be very interested in providing, having a document they can provide to newly hired police officers. And then, Dina, does it make sense for you to spend a minute talking about the data in the back, which is the plan assets and just the financial information, which by now is already slightly dated? But does it make sense for you to talk about that real quickly before the board votes?

The two pages in the back are standard pages that are included in every summary plan description, pretty much. And it just has highlights of key actuarial information on page 20. So we have just the head counts from the latest available actuarial evaluation, which is the October 1, 2023 and the one for the previous actuarial liabilities of October 1, 2022. So it has the key highlights, which are the headcount of active employees and inactive employees, annual payroll, annual rate of benefits and pay status, the actuarial accrued liability, net actual value of assets and funded accrued liability, their quiet contribution, which was developed in the actual evaluation to be deposited by the village as a dollar amount and as a percentage of payroll for employees and the fiscal year to which that contribution applies. And so that's just a very standard exhibit that You're supposed to update once every couple of years and with just the latest available information. So that's what I've done here. The initial draft that we prepared of this summary plan description was actually back in 2023, but I believe it wasn't adopted because there were some outstanding questions. And so when I picked it up again before this meeting, I updated that table in the back here to the actual evaluation report, which was most recently approved, which is the October 1, 2023 evaluation report. So that's page 20. That's just information from the Actual Evaluation Report summarized for plan participants. And on page 21, again, that's also information from the Actual Evaluation Report, and it's just a reconciliation of the plan's market value of assets for the last two fiscal years, which just shows the starting market value of assets, contributions, investment income, and benefit payments and expenses, and the ending market value of assets for participants.

Any discussion?

There's just one little thing.

Can you push? Thank you.

Sorry. Just under investment managers, page four, it just needs to be updated.

Okay. It has been updated. You might not have the updated version, though.

The draft?

That's okay. Let's see. You're talking about Mariner, right?

No, we've got the various people that are running the money. We don't have Allspring anymore. We have Vanguard. We have Mariner. We have Newton Asset. We do the Boston Company. That's all. Okay. It just needs to be updated. That's all.

We don't have Allspring anymore. That might need to change because we do have Allspring still in this draft.

Right, and we need to put in Vanguard also. Page 4. Yeah, maybe she get that from Yeah, okay, who are all the managers they got Boston company Vanguard In Newton in Boston company the same thing yeah, I So, what would you call it, Newton or Boston Company?

Oh, it should be Newton now.

It should be Newton now. Boston is, name's been changed.

Right, so I have Newton.

Newton.

I have Newton. Oh, wait. I have the Boston Company and Newton.

Boston Company's name has been changed to Newton.

Okay. Get rid of Boston Company.

Right. And Dave, who are the other ones? I'll just look at it, but... integrity. Integrity, asset management. Where are they? Okay, here they are. Fidelity, large capital growth. You could say Fidelity, Vanguard. Integrity.

Is this just the investments or are these all separate investment managers?

These are all separate investment managers. Which ones are, Dave, have I got it right? It's Newton, Vanguard, Fidelity, Integrity.

We're using multiple products from Vanguard. Right. And one product from Fidelity, yeah.

I mean, if you could just send me... You want me to send it to you? Yeah, if you just send me, like, a blurb, I can just put it right into the Word document. Or, I mean, if you have the Word documents, you could also just adjust that section.

Okay, we'll get it to you. Yeah. Okay.

No, I mean, you know, I don't need to... You could just adjust it and then give it to the village.

It's not like that. Okay. I don't know how to do that, but I'll figure it out.

Okay. That's fine. No, that's okay. I can do it for you.

You can do that. Okay. I'll tell you what it is. Okay. Okay.

Anything else? Any other discussion or anything else you picked up in the SPD? Abner, you had a question?

Yes, but it escaped my mind. Sorry. Anybody else question. There's some that triggers that or is that something that we do practice on how often should we what's the standard on that.

I believe in the neck and clarify things every 2 years.

Every two?

Every two years. We should be updated. And we have not really had one updated for like the last 10 years. We've had a draft one, but we haven't really had one officially voted on and signed on upon. So I think that's what we're going to do today, right, Dina? That's what you're asking for?

Yeah, if that's all right with you, we could just ask for a motion to approve pending the updates to the investment manager section.

Got it.

Adam do you have anything you'd like to add? So what I'm going to also add is that it's not inappropriate and it depends how detailed into the weeds do you want to get but I know if the HR director was here she'd probably point out that it's sometimes useful for there to be physical copies and the question came up at the general meeting And I'm not sure that the board does resolve it because they haven't finalized the SPD. But my view is that, you know, for the police officers are fairly sophisticated. So most of the guys can probably see it online and PDF copies. But sometimes it's also a good idea to make printed copies. So I'm deferring to the administrator and to the department You know, I think you can approve it, and you can also approve as many copies as HR or the administrator decide to be printed, because some people prefer to have a hard copy in their file, especially new hires, you know, where they can have the document. So I will leave that to you. There's no right answer on how many copies to make. I'm wondering if the HR director or if our administrator wants to weigh in, but I think you can discuss that also if you want.

Thank you for that. Well, I already have an idea on how we're going to take care of that from the union side, so we're going to make sure everybody gets a copy of it. So, do I have a motion? If there's no further discussion. Do I have a motion?

So moved. What's the motion? The motion is to accept the draft report summary plan description with the updated money managers.

Okay. Do I have a second?

You have a second.

Abner seconds. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Motion passes. Dino, it's approved with the exception of the managers, which we'll take care of today.

So keep Dina on the line because... Go ahead, yes. I just want to go back to the mayor real quick. I'm looking at all the documents. You're going to send us an addendum, right, that stipulates everything that we discussed? I'm sorry? I'm looking at all the documents that we have, and the addendum refers to an agreement that was entered October 29th, I think, 24, but the agreement that we have is on the 2nd of April, 24. So all I'm asking is, are you going to send us a new addendum with everything that...

Yes. Okay.

That's all.

Yeah, that covers... I mean, there was the original in 2008, revised in 16, there was an addendum... And then with the Mariner acquisition of ANCO, we had to send you another one. So the latest document exchange has to do with no changes in the terms, but just reflecting that the contract's now with Mariner, not with ANCO.

And that's the agreement that we have now? That's the second day of April 2024? Yes.

So, obviously, I haven't been agreeing to it's the red line version.

This short one here. Yeah. But that one refers to an agreement that was entered on the 20th, I don't know, 29th or 20th of October.

Yeah, but, I mean.

29th, okay. So which agreement is that?

No, what I'm telling, I don't think, it hasn't been agreed to yet because nobody signed it. That's the one that he's proposing to do now, but he's going to change it.

No, no, I understand, but it just references an agreement that was done in the past. Oh, okay. Is it this one? That was the second day of April 24.

So April 24, that would have been the date of acquisition. So I think there were two things going on. There was a temporary, I'm going to call it a temporary agreement sign that you all were accepting the Mariners purchased a sign over of that agreement and then there was a second formal agreement that maybe hasn't been executed yet that is the official agreement between Mariner and the board. So there was a temporary Terms are the same, but there was a temporary because of the buyout. You agreed to the buyout. And then the most recent one should be reflective of the Mariner. That's the general contract.

So this is the police. This is the general. to your underlying point which is absolutely valid at your next meeting if not before the next meeting a version will be circulated which will capture what was discussed today for the chair to sign in fact I probably think it makes sense to to get it signed prior to the next board meeting that way they can see the signed copy at the meeting.

All right, moving on to the attorney's report.

So trustees it's always a pleasure to see everybody and I do want to wait till everybody gets back so let me just cover a little bit of what's going on in Tallahassee so nothing for the board to take action on but you know the Legislature I think finishes up this week unless they extend the session so one of the things that our office does as we review pending legislation and Dave will be looking at a bill relating to boycotting of Israel and this was adopted by the Florida Legislature So we cannot be investing, nor can the state be investing, in any companies that boycott Israel. And this has to do with the BDI movement. But that doesn't directly relate to us. And Dave can discuss it with me at the next meeting if it gets signed by the governor. And again, the session isn't over. But if there are any bills that relate to pension, we'll bring them up for you at the next board meeting. And I know Dave's already started to take a look at that bill because we chatted about it and sent emails. All right, so I'm just waiting for everyone to be here. I'm talking about the Florida legislature, nothing for us to take action on, but their session will finish, the legislative session, in the next week or so. So what do I have officially on the attorney's report? And I'm going to, in a way, tag-team this with, and I was given a copy of it earlier today, this is a pending application for a disability benefit, and I don't want to speak for Paul, but I realize that that's Paul, And the reason I wanted Dina to be on the phone is because I want her to agree or disagree with what I'm about to say. So let me move closer.

I will speak directly into the phone.

Okay. So this is a recorded meeting, and people ask the question, why would you discuss at a board meeting medical information? And the answer is that You know, the Sunshine Law says anything that we do as a board has to be in public. So if Paul doesn't want us to talk about this at the board meeting, I can have conversations behind the scenes with you and with the administrator. And I want to give you the opportunity that if you want us to not talk about it today, you know, we can talk about it later. So he's giving me permission to discuss it with you. So here's the question. And these are sensitive topics, but it's relevant to this conversation. So I'm looking at the application, which was just submitted recently. And the disability application describes a medical condition, ALS, which is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. And the question that the chair had asked me earlier and that we're going to want to talk about with the actuary is, we don't tell members what to do or what not to do. But we want to understand the lay of the land and options. And ALS does not have a cure. And ALS is a disease where it's not a very favorable prognosis, I think is an affirmative way to say it. So should he be applying for, and we don't tell him what to do, but he has an option to apply for a duty disability. And there are two kinds of disabilities. There's a duty disability and a non-duty disability. And there's also, he has the ability based upon his years of service, and I just did some homework with the administrator. He was hired in 2007, and it's now 2025, so we're talking about basically 18 years of service. And your age, 1966 is when you were born. So he's basically 59 years old. And if everyone looks at the summary plan description, and if you look under normal retirement, people can do normal retirement at age 55, and I'll give you the page. So this is using your SPD. Go to page number seven. So normal retirement date is 25 years of service. He does not have 25 years of service, but he does have 55 and 10. And again, I'm on page seven. So because he's age 55 with 10 years of service and he's really age 59 with 10 years of service, he could retire tomorrow and start collecting a regular pension benefit. And the question for the board and for him is, well, should he also apply for a disability? And there's a difference between a duty disability and a non-duty disability. And let's again go back to the summary plan description. And I'm going to page number... 11. And it distinguishes between service disability and non-service disability. And a service disability is the accrued benefit, but not less than 42%. And you get the accrued benefit anyway with a normal retirement. So if he were to retire tomorrow, we would give him the accrued benefit. And then the non-service disability is your accrued benefit, which has a 25% minimum, and the service has a 42% minimum. But you're well in excess of either of the two minimums. So for all intents and purposes, the difference between the service and the non-service is a tax answer. that a service disability is a tax-free benefit, whereas a non-service is a taxable benefit. So I'm not asking you to make decisions today. I'm just walking you through the analysis. So it's not for me to tell you today because I'm not a medical doctor, but what's the difference between service and non-service? If it's a service disability, it was a result of your work as a police officer. And a non-service would be you fall down in the shower at home and you pull out your back. That's a non-service disability. So the application which is being submitted today, I don't know if it says service or non-service on it, but the question is what's going to be the difference if the board were to grant the disability or if you were just to leave? So in order to be given a disability, you'd have to be able to show that you can't do the job. And if we were to process the disability, we would send you to a doctor or we'd ask the board to look at your medical records, which I don't have. I just have a high-level copy of part of your medical records. But for a service disability, we'd want to know how ALS was connected to the job. And maybe, and again, I'm not a medical expert on the subject, but maybe there could be an argument that, ALS was precipitated by the job. I think most doctors would say they don't know what causes ALS. Some of them may say that the cause of it is not known, the ideology is unknown, maybe there's an environmental factor to it, and I wasn't sure what your condition was until I saw the application today. I may have thought it may have been cancer or there may have been other reasons for the condition. But from what I'm understanding, it's ALS. So really, the choice that you're going to have is do you want to proceed with a non-duty disability or a duty disability? Do you think that you'd be able to establish, because the burden is on the member to establish if it's duty versus non-duty, service versus non-service. So if you think you could connect the dots to show this was job related, then the board would consider whatever evidence you present. But at the end of the day, the only difference between service and non-service is the tax treatment. So because you're eligible to retire tomorrow, based upon your age and you have 10 years of service, that's entirely up to you. If you wanted to retire, we could ask the actuary, and that's why I have you on the phone now, Dina, if you want to talk about quickly how the benefit is calculated. And in a roundabout way, what I'm trying to explain is there is no difference based upon you have the years of service, What did I say 18 years of service you have the age your age 59 so we can start paying in so maybe Dean if I could put you on the spot and discuss with us high level how the benefit would be calculated under all the scenarios and it all brings you back to the same place the only difference would be the tax treatment if you were granted a duty disability. And, you know, if we were to process it, the doctor would be asked, is this duty or non-duty? And from what little I know about ALS, without prejudicing anything, I think most doctors, and again, I don't have access to the files, many doctors would say that ALS is not job-related. It's a condition of unknown origin and that's something we can send it to a doctor to weigh it in. But I'm curious if you're interested in proceeding with the disability or if you just want to separate from service and start collecting. We can expedite the payment of the normal retirement benefit as soon as you're ready to retire. And if you wanted to move forward with a disability, we'd have to probably send you to a doctor. The doctor would evaluate, you know, based on how advanced the condition is, can you continue to do the job today? In six months from now, can you do the job? So I want to walk through and have a respectful conversation with you. But before we have that conversation, I'm wondering, Dean, I'm going to put you back on the microphone.

If you can summarize how the calculation is done.

And it's basically the same thing. It's the accrued benefit for a duty versus a regular retirement.

Do you know you're there? Can you go?

Yep, I'm here. Right, so the benefit is calculated, it's a monthly pension that's determined to be 2.91% multiplied by your years of credited service multiplied by your average monthly compensation. Your average monthly compensation is the average of your pensionable salary over the three years. So you take your your, I think, last three or highest three of the last 10, which is usually your last three, divide by years of salary, divide by 36. That gets you the average monthly compensation. Multiply that by 2.91% and multiply that by the number of years of service. So if you have 18 years of service, and we use years and months, so it's... multiplied by 2.91%. So if it's 18 years exactly, that would be 52%, 52.3% of your average final compensation payable monthly. And then you could also elect optional forms. You could elect a 100% joint survivor to provide the benefit to continue 100% to your designated joint annuitant. That will reduce your benefit up front slightly, but allow for continuation onto your beneficiary. There's other options as well. 75% J&S, period certain. All those options are available as well. But Adam was correct that there's not going to be a difference for you in terms of how the benefit is calculated, whether it's a disability or not a disability, because you're... I think there's a question

Yeah, so excellent question. The IRS code treats workers' comp and pensions and the nature of workers' comp as tax-free. So if you fall off a truck while you're at work or get shot in a vehicle accident or whatever it might be, you're doing your job as a police officer, You know, you're shot by a felon and you can't do the job, that is a not, and I'm summarizing, but that's a, you don't have to pay income tax on the benefit up to the, there's formulas for how it's done, but basically the quick answer is that a duty disability, all things being equal, is not taxable.

And does the pension get hit with some of the tax issues? No, it's just straight. That's a very, very, very big benefit.

Right, so that's why.

But you have to go through the disability process in order to get that benefit. Is that correct?

So in order for us to consider a disability, there's a process that we follow. So I take the application, and I have it now, and it was signed by several people, and I want to say the HR director or the chief, I'm not sure, I have to read it all, but the city gets to weigh it in. and give an opinion. For example, the city can say that, you know, this is an employee, and I'm not saying you, but cities can say, oh, no, this is a person who's applying for a disability. This is an employee who doesn't go to work, and he's tardy, and she, you know, has issues with, you know, with obedience and, you know, job-related, you know, compliance issues. And there are various reasons why a city may say that don't grant the disability because it's not a real disability. There are reasons why an employee is trying to use a disability as an excuse, for example.

So what you're saying is benefit is going to be basically the same whether you get disability or whether you just retire.

Unless?

The difference is going to be with the tax treatment.

Correct.

So the dollar amount. So that's going to be it, but it's a big hassle to go through a disability process.

So you're cutting to the nub, the central question. So if the applicant were to decide to retire this month, we can process and we can ask the actuary to calculate for him on an expedited basis his monthly benefit. We can start calculating that and we can pay it effective the first of next month. So we can pay him a regular benefit. If he wants to proceed with a disability and if he thinks There's evidence that it could be job related. It's not going to change the dollar amount. The dollar amount will not change. It's the tax treatment. And I'm not aware of any situations where ALS has been considered to be duty related. But that's going to be up to you and your doctor. And we will spend the money to send you to what's called an IME, an independent medical exam. So I'm talking about any disability case. If we move forward with it, we will send the applicant to be reviewed. It would be a neurologist because it's a neurological condition. And we have a form. We would ask the doctor, is it duty related? Is it non-duty related? Can the person do the job? And we go through a whole process. And you have to go be evaluated. Sometimes it can take weeks or months in order for the doctor to set up the appointment. It could take weeks or months for the doctor to give the report. It can take weeks or months for us to get all the medical evidence and give it, because the doctor doesn't give an opinion in a vacuum. The doctor wants to look at the medical records. There might be workers' comp files. There may be other files, MRIs and other documents. And I do have a couple pages in the file that was given to me today. So I'm having a respectful conversation with you. If you want us to proceed with the duty disability application, we can. It'll probably take in the neighborhood of several months. And then the board's going to have to decide what are the requirements. The first requirement is for a duty disability that is job related, that it's duty. Second requirement is can you do the job? And the doctor is going to be asked, does your neurological condition limit you and prevent you from doing the job, not of attorney or of administrator, but of a police officer? And you may be there already. I don't know. If you're able to continue doing the job, or maybe in a couple weeks from now, you won't be able to do it anymore. But that's the second requirement. So first, is it duty-related? Two, can you do the job of a police officer? And third, is it permanent? And from what I understand, I'm not a doctor. ALS, unfortunately, is permanent. So really, the only question is the duty relatedness. Is it job related? And as we sit here today, again, I'm very happy to go through the process to send it out. But I want to make sure that you're aware of what the process looks like. And you could retire. The good news is you could retire tomorrow and we'll start paying you the regular pension benefit. Or, and I'm just walking this through with everybody, if you decide to retire, and I'm not encouraging you one way or another, you may want to keep working to the very end where you can continue to hold the gun. It's entirely up to you and the department how long they'll let you work. But we might decide, trustees, that let's let him retire. Let's grant his regular pension without prejudice. We'll send the file to the doctor and let the doctor tell us is it duty or not duty. And that way, if it's decided that it's duty related, which i'm not optimistic it will but i'm not a medical doctor then you could convert the regular pension into a duty pension a duty if the doctor were to say that so let me just summarize i would have no objection again entirely up to you if you wanted to retire you know as soon as you want we could start paying you we could process the disability that way we're not delaying you're getting the monthly benefit and if the doctor were to decide that it's duty related we could convert it into a duty disability. I'm not optimistic that would happen, but at least let's let a doctor give that answer. And I threw out a lot of information, so ask me questions.

I think the biggest concern, and I think for a couple of us, is if we do, if Sergeant Vieira decides to make that effective, let's say, immediately, as you suggest, can this be retroed back to this date once the process is completed for the disability?

So the key word I use as a lawyer is without prejudice. So if you wanted to retire, that's entirely up to you. I'm not saying you should today. It might be a couple more months, however long it might be. But the answer is we would only do the disability determination once the doctor makes a decision. So that would not be retroactive, but it would be prospective. And I would want to do a little bit of homework on your question. But what that does is that that's the best of both worlds. So he can start collecting whenever he wants, treat it as a regular retirement. And if it turns out that he does qualify, because I don't want to say yay or nay, but if it were to be decided by a doctor, and I'm not hopeful that it would, but if the doctor were to say that it's duty related, then From that point on we could treat it for tax purposes as a dollar amount won't change but the tax status will change so we would characterize it as a duty disability as opposed to a Regular normal retirement and I think that has the advantage of moving things along Assuming that you want to retire sooner rather than later and I don't want to put you on the spot because I don't know when you want to retire but but the good news is you have the years of service and you have the age and This would be a totally different conversation if you were under age 55. Because if you're under age 55, we couldn't start paying you a normal benefit. But you're over age 55, so we can start paying you effective the first of next month once all the normal retirement is submitted, normal retirement application.

I have a question.

Just so everyone can hear you.

Is there an illness disability clause? Other than on duty.

So that's an excellent question. And you're wondering, is there more options rather than duty versus non-duty? And the answer is, it's duty or non-duty. That's the criteria. Those are the two different kinds of disability pensions. What the firefighters, and maybe I'll answer it this way, is the firefighters in the last couple years were successful, the IAFF and the fire union, and they came up with all kinds of statistical evidence, and they had scientists working on this for years, the IAFF nationally, that certain firefighters were coming down with certain cancers which they thought were a result of exposure to airborne chemicals. because firefighters are going through the scenes of accidents, and there was a much higher, statistically higher incidence of certain lung cancers, and they came up with about 18 or so identified, and I could read them to you, cancers that are now treated as job-related. Because we don't know what causes cancer, but there's statistical evidence that certain cancers are more likely for firefighters. So that was then put into the law. Also what was put into the law is heart disease. that police officers and firefighters have a higher incidence of heart disease. So we have a presumption that for a police officer who had a clean bill of health, a clean EKG when they were hired, if they wind up having a stroke or a heart attack, we're going to presume that that's job related. You never know for sure, but that's a legal presumption. So the way I'm answering your question is there is no legal presumption for ALS. probably because, as far as I know, they don't know the cause. And so to answer the question, there is no statutory language creating a presumption for ALS only for cancer for firefighters, certain kinds of cancer, and heart disease for police and for fire, which is why I'm not optimistic. I'm not prejudicing anything. It's going to be let the doctor decide. So I'm giving you a path forward. If that's the path you want to take, We can let you retire whenever you want for a normal retirement. We can process the disability application. We're going to have to spend the money, which is fine, to get all the medical records and go through the process. We'll send it, if that's what you want to do, we'll send it out to a doctor to review it, and then the doctor will decide, is it duty or non-duty? Can you do the job, and is it permanent? And I'm fairly optimistic the doctor will say it's permanent. I can't say it for sure, but from what I understand, the doctor will say, And so it's permanent. The doctor will say, you probably can't do the job. At least at some point, you can't do the job. And the big question is going to be, will the doctor say it's job-related or non-job related? Is it duty or non-duty? And I don't want to give you that answer. I want to let the doctor give you that answer once you decide that you want to move it forward.

So based on the information given by Adam. I appreciate it.

Paul, I'm sorry, can you just introduce yourself, please, for everybody out there?

Sorry, this is Sergeant Vieira, Paul Vieira. And based on the information supplied, I've had this conversation with the doctors. And You are correct as far as establishing a cause. They say it can happen that there is a cause due to an accident that I did have on job, but it will be hard to prove with any certainty anything in that regard. So to find a doctor to say, yes, it was due to this accident, 100%, that's not going to happen. So I'm not willing to... to put this city through any financial expense. I'll just go with retirement if there's no cause for illness.

Would you continue to work for a while? Are you able to work?

No, I cannot work.

You cannot work?

No, I'm disabled. Oh, you're disabled now.

Go ahead. He's actually retired as of last Friday.

I am so sorry. My heart goes out to you.

And just for a little more background, he's been out of work since October. He hasn't been able to work since October.

I see. Yeah.

So...

This is a question for Doug and Yolanda has the paperwork for normal retirement that you have enough information yet because you'll have to fill out a regular application and then This is to walk through options on the on the summary plan description So I'm glad you're here and we can give you a draft if you want So there are various options you have when you retire you can choose a benefit which is a life annuity and normally I don't tell people PROs and cons but in this circumstance do not choose the life annuity because you have a condition which we know it's not a favorable condition and let me show you the pages trustees there are 100% option there's a 75% option and I don't know if Dina can hear me so I'm flipping through the pages optional form page 14 so page 14 gives you option 1 2 3 So it mentions three options. So I'm going to jump right into option number one. So option number one, it's called joint and last survivor annuity. And the joint and last survivor annuity, you may elect to receive a decreased monthly benefit during your lifetime and have that benefit continue. And I don't know, do you have a wife? Do you have a wife? So have that benefit continue in either 100%. Everybody see where I am on page 14? 75%, 60, six and two thirds, or 50%? Normally, whenever this question comes up, I say people do your homework and evaluate your options because different people have different horizons and different goals. In your case, when you're diagnosed with a terminal condition, I'm not telling you what to do, but it seems to me that the 100% option So you get a little bit less when you're alive, but when you pass away, and everybody eventually will pass away, 100% of the benefit would continue for your spouse. And based upon his age of 58, and how old is your spouse? Ballpark?

He's 60.

In that ballpark, 60 or so. So, Dina, we're not asking you to do a complete calculation, but to give us some idea what kind of a reduction it would be to choose the 100%. And you don't have to make this decision today. And Dina will give calculations, and you'll get to see what the numbers look like on all the different options. But it seems to me that that is likely what you will choose when you do your homework, the 100% option, that the benefit will be a little bit less during your lifetime, and then 100% of that amount will continue during the lifetime. So it's a pension benefit effectively for your spouse.

You're age 58, and your spouse is 60, you said?

Yes.

So let me see if I have this right. It's a pretty sizable reduction. I'm getting something like a 70% reduction, or I'm sorry, 70% of the benefit, but I may be, this isn't peer reviewed. So I maybe don't trust this number yet. Um, but you'll see all of the numbers on the notification form. When I, when I calculate, you'll see all of the options and exactly what the

So option number two is only a life annuity. The life annuity ends when you pass. That's why I am going on record to say do not choose the life annuity. And then option number three is a Social Security option, where it starts off higher until you hit Social Security age, and then it goes down when you hit Social Security age. I'm not recommending the Social Security option. I am recommending a survivor option, and presumably the 100%. But you'll see the numbers from the actuary. And what I think I'm hearing today is now that everybody understands, and I have a better understanding of the condition, for all intents and purposes, and it's your choice, if you want us to proceed, if you want to go to medical appointments, if you want to have to gather the records, we can go through the process. But when it comes to ALS, I do not think it's likely, I can't say one way or another, that a doctor would say it's job-related. So it's a 12% give or take it's about a 12% reduction I have a question.

I don't know if Dina can hear me or not Dina I know you really can't start your process until you get the numbers from the city so Because time is of the essence. What can we do to make sure he's getting his retirement benefit as quickly as possible so that way he's not delayed? Is there a way to like prorate this where we can give him his benefit until you're able to work out the numbers so that way he's not going without a paycheck?

So the first thing you can do right away is he has a share plan account balance that can be distributed right away. There will be additional credits to that share plan account balance once the amount of state money for fiscal year 2024 is approved and finalized. once we know if we're getting that additional distribution from the state for FY2024. So he will get an additional credit for FY2024, but his latest FY2023 share plan statement has his balance at around $9,000, so that can be distributed right away. And then he can get an additional payment for the remainder of his balance. And then, you know, I have seen other plans issue an estimated monthly payment until the final certified calculation is prepared and then the amount is trued up. So there's, you know, you could pay something like an estimate, and this would be probably a procedure or a one-time thing that the board would have to approve. But, you know, you could just maybe take the amount from the last benefit statement that was prepared as of October 1, 2023 and pay that amount. And then, you know...

So what you're saying is you can... I'm sorry to cut you off. What you're saying is you can do your calculations based off his last benefit statement, which he received, to give him some numbers so that way he can look at it and, you know, ballpark or make an estimate of what he wants to do, what benefit he wants, what option he wants.

I could do an estimated calculation just based on the salaries that were received for the actual evaluation. So the last benefit statement we have is through 10-1-20-23. So I could do an estimated calculation reflecting credited service through yesterday, right? Yesterday was his termination date?

Yes.

So I could prepare a calculation that's an estimate and just say this is based on valuation salary and credited service through the termination dates. And you can make that election based on that estimate. And then once we have final payroll from the village and the final calculation request is put in, then I can finalize. And then you could pay whatever the difference is. I mean, there's a chance that it might come out a little bit lower once the village

But if it's higher, then he would be reimbursed. You would true it up later. True it up later, okay.

And if it's lower, you could probably just reduce a future benefit payment rather than asking for any kind of refund.

Okay.

I mean, that's kind of like a question for Adam of procedure, what is allowed, but I think that would be reasonable from my standpoint.

So, trustees, more details than we need. Often when a police officer retires... You know, we have the heads-up notice that they're going to be retiring and, you know, the actuary, because it takes a little bit of time. But I think Dina understands why this is something we don't want to wait. We want to move this ahead. We appreciate her working hard with our administrator. So that way you'll be given rough numbers. ASAP, Asuna, Dina, and the administrator, I'm sure everybody has contact numbers. So that way you can decide, is it the 100% option you want to choose? You'll see the numbers. We can put you in pay status. And I don't remember for this plan, do we pay effective the first day of the month? Yeah. Yeah. So we want to get you a check starting with, what is today, April 28th. So we will get you a check as soon as we reasonably can after being effective May 1st.

And he would receive back pay. They'll say he doesn't get it until June 1st. He'll get reimbursed.

And if it turns out to be a higher number, then we're going to chew it up going forward. But the goal is to get you a check. We can't promise you a date because there are things that have to happen, but it'll be effective as of May 1st.

Any other questions? Comments? Okay.

Yeah, for the record, just because I know Paul. And if you listen to his statement, he's like, I want to pull out because I don't want it to be a burden on the village because Sergeant Vieira does nothing but contribute. He's contributed for 18 years. so I don't know if it's inappropriate or not but I'd like to encourage him to move forward with whatever application he submitted earlier regardless of the cost or regardless of whatever burden he feels would be on the city that would be my my two cents

To clarify, it's no burden. It comes from the fund. So the city doesn't pay anything.

Yeah, to my point. Yeah, exactly. I agree. I would have no issue with that at all if you choose to do that.

Okay. Can we move forward now?

So we will send out the medical request. So we're doing both tracks. We're going to pay you effective May 1st. We are also going to proceed, I use the word, without prejudice. We're going to proceed with a disability application. And if it can be demonstrated, if the doctor for the board, after reviewing you and reviewing your file, says it's service related, we'll convert it into a service related. If the doctor says it's not service related, because he can't decide one way or another, then you just get your regular multi-pension. But there's no prejudice, there's no harm to trying, and that way you're letting the medical process play itself out. And if your doctor, because your doctor's going to get a form, and it's going to be the... the disability form. And the doctor is going to be asked to give an opinion, your doctor, your treating doctors. Is it duty related? The three requirements I talked about, is it duty related, is it total, and is it permanent? And if your doctor says it's permanent, if your doctor signs that, that's something that we can consider. But, you know, it's going to be up to your doctor how they fill it out, and it's going to be up to our doctor how do they fill it out. And it's pretty clear that it's going to say it's duty related. I'm sorry, they're going to say it's It's total, it's permanent, but that's the big question mark. Is it duty-related? So you'll be getting that form to give it to your doctor. We're going to be sending you to a doctor to do the IME. This will come back to the board, and we're not making any decisions today, but we are putting you in pay status. That way you're going to get a monthly benefit. And we are, as a collective group, thanking you, sir, for all of your service, and it's a pleasure to know you.

Thank you.

The money you get, you paid for it. I mean, you put the money in. It's not, it's your money.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Adam, I have a question. Is it not following procedure to, is there, I've taken so many classes at the conferences and stuff, so I'm trying to remember all the training I received, but in this case the board is the final decision on what happens regardless of what a medical, an independent medical opinion is, correct? So that's my first question. Second question is and I'm not saying this is what we're going to do, I'm not saying anything like that, but really for my education purposes Does it even have to go down that route? Let's just say it was something clear and obvious Okay Does it have to do we have to do that?

I'll give you an example of one of my boards where an officer was shot in the head and Following that traumatic injury where you know a bullet went through his brain the board decided what's the point why send someone out for an independent medical exam when a A superficial review of the file was patently obvious that this is someone who can't do the job. He's stuck in a wheelchair, and it was unnecessary to go through the motions. But the high-level answer is that the board, yes, makes decisions, but the decisions have to be supported by medical evidence. And none of us are doctors, which is why none of us can make – we have to make decisions informed by medical decisions and by medical evidence. And that's why ALS, which is a very rare condition, it's famous because of Lou Gehrig, but it's a very rare condition. And unfortunately, you know, and I don't pretend to be an expert, we just don't know what the cause is. And in order for the board to decide that it was duty-related, we'd have to have some substantiating evidence from a doctor, because you send it out to a doctor to click the boxes. Is it duty? Is it non-duty? So you'd want to be able to hang your hat on some medical evidence. So I'm not telling you eventually how it will play itself out, but ultimately you want to have a file with medical experts weighing in. Does that make sense? Thank you.

Any other comments? Go ahead, Dina, sorry.

I have a quick question. Is the non-taxable status, does that transfer on to the survivor benefit or is it just for the retiree's lifetime?

So Dina asked an excellent question and offhand I don't know the answer. So her question is that if it were a duty disability, which again is a big question mark, would the spouse get the benefit? And I think Dean is probably right. The spouse would get the benefit. But again, the issue here is, is it duty or is it non-duty?

And we'll go through the process.

But I will let you know at the next meeting if it continues for the spouse as a duty versus non-duty. Any other questions?

Am I proceeding with preparing an estimated calculation then? Is that the plan?

Yes, so Dean, if you can hear me, we do want to, effective May 1st, we do want to proceed with the payment and do the estimate so that way The officer, the sergeant, can decide which of the options he wants. He understands the value of a 100% option, but he'll get to see the 75, the 66 and two-thirds, the 50%. And then once you get the final numbers, you'll chew that up, so there'll be an adjustment in the multi-benefit. It could go down, but we expect it would probably go up based upon newer updated payroll information. And we will proceed with the application and it will require you to be evaluated by a doctor, it'll require us to get medical records, it'll ask your doctor to click the boxes to select what we talked about, and our doctor will also wait in, and this will come back to you at a future board meeting. The last thing I want to point out is that when we talk about things, that's public record, but the documents are outside of the Sunshine Law. And what'll happen is, we're gonna compile a notebook for everybody, and we may do it by WeTransfer, or we may do it by I forgot what the name of the program we use, where you can see the documents and look at them online, a file transfer service. So what I'm going to tell you is these medical records are nobody's business. So you're each going to get these medical records, and those medical records have confidentiality attached to them. So when you look at those records, if you print it out, keep it in a drawer that doesn't sit on your desk. Keep it under lock and key if you decide to print it out. If you have these records at home, You know, they're not for anyone to see other than you. And when we finalize the disability process, we'll collect those records back from you. We'll make sure that they're destroyed and they're shredded and you get a copy. But the point is, you know, these are sensitive topics, so we talked about it today because that's how you make decisions. But the records are not public. Does that make sense?

Yes, sir.

And that will conclude the attorney's report. Thank you, everybody, unless there are any other questions. Nope. All right. Thank you.

we'll move on to number six approval of the pension meeting minutes that was held on march 12 2025. does anybody need to go over them are there any questions or anybody need to change anything uh

I just have a question. I wasn't there. What's the final word on the auditor? Are we getting our own?

Well, we got the, we did finally get in the 2023 auditor. we last week we did get the 2023 audit in the village manager today told me the 2024 is not done but I think that they're making substantial progress in it so whether you're gonna do an RFP for the audit or not that's something I could think you have to talk about at a future meeting let me give 15 15 seconds

Attorney said that a lot of the information that an outside auditor needs comes from the city, so you would probably end up with the same delay that you've got now.

So what's the point?

Am I right? That's what I was going to say. So because the auditor needs the documents and the underlying information to audit, and that was not available, it wouldn't have expedited anything. So it's still an issue we can discuss going forward if we want our own auditor, but it would not have expedited the process.

I'm sorry, was there a motion?

I make a motion to accept the minutes. Aye. Seconded.

Seconded. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. I abstain. I wasn't there. You can't abstain.

You have no abstain.

No abstain. Yes or no? Yay or nay? I'll say yay then.

Yay. Aye. So, all right, let's move on. Ratifying the warrants A, B, and C should all be included in your packet. Any questions regarding the warrants? Hearing no questions, do I have a motion to approve?

I don't see a motion. I'm with the motion to approve the three warrants.

All right, I have a motion. Do I have a second? Seconded by Abner. All in favor?

Aye.

All right, any new business, which we kind of already talked about, but is there any other new business? Nothing. All right. We move it on to number nine, the administrative report. We've already talked about the SPD and took care of that. Where are we at with the refund of contribution and retirement?

So we didn't have any return. Is this on? Yes. Okay. So we didn't have any retirements. And in terms of the refund of contributions, we processed one for Morales. And then on Daniel Rivera, the village reported that there was no contribution to be distributed. Daniel Rivera.

Yeah, Daniel Rivera. I don't recognize the name.

That's.

Is there an Obondo? The only Daniel I know has an Obondo.

Maybe that's a second last name?

Well, Yoli is looking at that. Let me just bring to the Board's attention. We spent quite a bit of time this morning talking at the GE about the state of the pension records. And I don't know if we've ever talked about it at this meeting or not, but because of all the turnover in administration and personnel in the future, what we received had a lot of omissions in the files. And so when people go to retire, we're always having to communicate with the village about beneficiary statements and the like. So the decision that was made this morning is that we're going to get new beneficiary designations and other information that we need for the files. so that we have a complete file on everybody. Also, our understanding is that rather than rely on a single person's Excel worksheet, for contribution or earnings history that we're going to get access to the village payroll system, which only covers the last 15 years, but it covers the years that you all would need as far as determining the benefit. There's other issues that could come up, a refund of contributions or something like that, that could be outside of that 15 years, I guess. But anyway, those were our plans going forward, is to get an updated beneficiary designation. And the other thing I'll point out, just so there's not, you know, because sometimes people are confused, there is a technical difference between a survivor and a beneficiary. You guys have a drop account, right? And that gains value. You also may have a spouse or someone that you want to make arrangements for to get your benefits if you would die before them. So that's a survivor. A lot of times it's the same person, right? It can be the same person for both purposes, but it could also be a different person for the drop account. You have a different beneficiary. So people get confused about what a beneficiary, I don't know if the FPPTA deals with that or not, but Technically, the person that would get your pension benefit if you die is your survivor, right? And that's why it's called a joint and survivor benefit. People will say, oh, my beneficiary for my pension benefit, but they're really talking about who their survivor is. But also, if you have a drop account, which I think the majority of you guys are going to have drop accounts, Yeah, you should have a beneficiary designation on that as well. And it could be a different person or persons. I mean, that's something that you have some leeway over. But that's the way that we're going to deal with it. Because truthfully, the records that were turned over to us were not really in good order. Although people seem to think that they were, but I can tell you that they're not complete. I mean, they're not complete. So anyway, just to give everybody a heads up.

So I just sent an email to Jami to clarify who Daniel Rivera belongs to, whether to a GE member or police, because it's illustrated like if it would be a police member.

And nothing yet for Vanolia Charles, right? Okay.

No.

Okay, that should be coming soon then. All right. Any other questions, comments, concerns? Nope. All right. Next meeting is scheduled for July 28th. Does 1 o'clock work for everybody? Did July 28th work? I feel like it was definitely a better meeting not having both meetings going at once. It's a Monday. Any objections? I got thumbs up.

Christine, I have a question, and it's entirely up to you. I would not object if you wanted to do it at 12, but if you want to do it at 1 and eat lunch first, that's, again, entirely up to you.

1 or 12?

What do we want to do?

Either works for me.

Yeah, it doesn't matter to me. It doesn't matter to us. What about you guys? We're all working, so you guys are the ones not working. So what do you guys want to do? Noon?

I'm fine, yeah. I eat whenever I want.

All right, so we'll do noon, 12 o'clock. That works for everybody. Does that work for the administrators?

Yes, it does.

And just so everyone understands, the other meeting starts at 8.15. Yeah, I know.

You guys are hanging around.

Yeah, 12 is better.

Yeah, hopefully it's done by 12.

I think it was done by 10 or 10.15.

Nice, that's good to hear. Okay, so July 28th, noon, 12 p.m., meeting adjourned.

Thank you. Thank you, everybody.