Police Retirement Pension Board - Regular Meeting

I have no idea who's in charge of the live stream of recordings if that's happening I

Well, Isabelle. I reached out to Isabelle, and when I sent them the agenda, she says that they programmed it to start at that time. And, in fact, I sent her an email this morning. You know, is everything okay? But I have not heard from her. Okay. I am recording it, though. Okay. Okay. I am recording it.

All right. Do you want to call roll?

Sure. Okay. Trustee Koop?

Present.

Oh. Trustee Maguth?

Present.

Trustee Maura?

Present.

Trustee Reynolds?

Here.

Trustee Vargas?

Present.

Also present, Adam Levinson, James Reno from Mariner, Adam Levinson from Klosner-Kaufman, Yolanda Shea and Doug Falcon from FHATPA.

Any public comments? I don't see any. Approval of the minutes from July 28th. Are there any comments regarding the minutes or changes?

I have no changes. I just wanted to point out that we're going to discuss this later, but I want to point it out. funds, our major equity funds, and put 300 into cash and a million into developing markets. And there was something with and they pulled out some of that money to rebalance their cash that they needed, which ended up with us only getting $800,000 into that fund. So we're going to talk about that. I was just talking about that with James. I just wanted you to notice it. in the notes. So when we talk about it, you'll see what we're talking about. Got it. Anything else?

Nope. Can I get a motion to approve the minutes?

Sure. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Moving on, number four, ratifying the warrants. Is there any discussion? No discussion. I'm going to ask that we do it all at once unless somebody objects to it and wants to do it individually.

I make a motion that we accept all the warrants. All right.

Clark with the motion. Is there a second? Second. Abner Vargas seconds. All in favor?

Aye. Can I ask a question? All right. They're charging us for auditing services. Is that the annual audit that we're supposed to do? Yes. It is? Okay. That's completed now, I assume, right?

No. No. They're still getting source material. Or 24? 24 is, no.

This is for fiscal year 2024. Oh, okay. This $5,000 is for fiscal year 2024.

Oh, yeah, that's done. 9-1 to 9-30, well, 9-1-23 to 9-30-24. Correct. So that would be two years ago. Well, 24.

Yeah, they haven't started 25. No, no, I know. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. But that was the one that was outstanding, right, that we got the letter for. Right. So that's resolved.

Correct. through because you'll have a breakdown of all of the vendors and what the charges are for all the vendors. But I think what you would see is that we're paying, I don't want to say materially, but significantly less by using the village auditor

I thought the issue really isn't the money as much as it's the timing is the issue we don't save any time because we have to get the information from the city so it's it's the same we're in the same thing they're very very slow I have had more experiences with that department and it is difficult

Well, believe it or not, I think Holly is working again as a consultant.

No, I don't think so.

No? I thought I saw something.

Her email is, yeah, I know, because her email is still being used. Oh, but it's not her?

Finance director, MSVL, yeah, that used to be hers. That was part of Marcia's. I thought I saw something.

Yeah, it did say her name. It said Holly. When? Just last week, right? Yeah, last week. Just last week. So it came from finance director, and it said Holly. But I know that I'm personally working with Marcia Fennell.

Yeah. Okay.

All right. I can't keep track. Just because we always get this letter because of the tax premium. Yes. So, is that resolved? That's basically what I'm trying to say. Yes.

So, resolved, that's a good question.

Thank you.

I don't think it's, has it been resolved? Yes. The question is, have we received the funds? No, I don't think so. I don't think so either. Yeah. Correct. Yeah, because we got our statements, and our statements didn't change, which tells me we didn't get our funds.

Correct.

And the issue of it being so slow is not resolved.

That's the bigger issue.

Right. Yeah.

But I do think, from what I'm seeing, all the auditors now are $15,000, you know, or thereabouts in fees.

No, I'm not concerned about the cost. Well, $5,000 seems to be. But you're a $40 million plan, too.

Right, exactly. I mean. Like get with the program, you know.

No, but we have this every year, every year. Right, exactly. What's the plan called? The shared plan. The shared plan, right? Yeah. Is... We always have this issue with the contribution made by the state.

Yeah. Just make sure you're talking to your mic. I'm sorry. In case there is anybody out there watching.

We always have this issue with the contribution of the state or the refund of the excise tax being delayed due to the delay of the audit. So I just wanted to know if this concludes that matter, which it kind of does, but we haven't received the funds. Correct. Okay. That's all. Thank you.

Let me tell you what the amount is so that way our administrator can send everybody an email when the money is paid in. But for the prior year, because it's always paid a year behind, the total distribution was $168,394. That's what the premium tax amount will be when the check comes in. And just if you wanted to track that back the last couple years, that was a 9% increase. So that's good news. It went up in a healthy clip. The year before that, the premium tax went up by 8%, and then it went up 23%. So you've had three back-to-back years of growth of your premium tax money. And when you go back three years, it was 109,000. This year, the check is almost 169,000. So it's gone up from 109 to 169, 168 over those three years. So it's heading in the right direction is my point.

That's a nice bump.

Can I ask another question, Adam? So, if we did everything by the book in terms of the timing of the audit and we submitted our, you know, documents to the state on time, when would we receive that money from them?

So, the statutory requirements. So, there's a deadline that's supposed to be submitted by March 15th.

The audited statements.

So the state report is supposed to be, you know, submitted all the day, which includes an audit because you can't do the state report without the audit. And you don't receive the money because they don't release what the amounts are usually until July or August. And the state has been falling behind the last several years. So it's not until August that they actually start cutting the checks. So this year, same idea. It was in August when they cut. If you had submitted it in March or January or February, you're still not going to receive it until August. So the goal is, though, you want to be approved and want to receive the money prior to September 30th because you want it to be paid during the fiscal year. And that ultimately is your point. We want it to be done, and the town wants it to be done, consistent with the fiscal year. And I'm hopeful, from what we've heard with town officials, that they're getting back on track, and hopefully we'll be on a regular, systematic audit scale timeline.

There's two issues. One is what you said, that we want to get it in the fiscal year, and the other one is opportunity cost. At $168,000, I don't know what the rate of return is that we're assuming, but if we are late by six months every year, we're losing that revenue.

Well, I can tell you what that would be.

Well, let's take 5%. 5%, yeah. 5% of 160 is? $7,500. $7,500, half of that, so it's $3,500 we're losing? Every year, approximately. And that's almost the cost of the audit itself? Yes.

Right there.

Just saying.

Okay.

Duly noted. Duly noted. For the record. Duly noted. It's not a pretty picture. We know that it's a problem. We've had that discussion many times. Yeah, it seems to be recurring. That's why I'm asking. The unfortunate part is it's not in any of our control. Oh, I know. I know. So that's the unfortunate part. All right. So I had a motion. Did we approve and ratify the warrants?

All in favor, say aye.

Aye. Okay. All right. Investment consultant report. I'm sorry, I forgot your name. James. Got it. Thank you, James. No worries. Thank you.

Good morning. It's very good to see you all. So again, I'm James Reno with Mariner. Dave has not ducked out yet, but as he continues in his professional transition, I will be stepping up more and more to the plate, so you'll be seeing a lot more of me. but me and dave are still working very closely together in the background as it concerns your plan but just to give a little bit of my background i'm james reno and i'm i'm an investment consultant with mariner and i serve florida public pension plans across the state of florida just like yours i'm also a cfa charter holder which is One of the most rigorous credentials in the investment industry. It's about a three-year credential for portfolio management. You have to pass three exams, a lot of early mornings, late nights after work. So glad to have it done with. And I also have a background in economics from the University of Georgia. So I don't know if there are any Bulldogs fans in the room. Yeah, exactly. I'll have a joke later. We'll see if I get away with it, but we'll see. But yeah, I'm very excited to work with you all, and it's very good to see you today. So we have a performance report, all good news there, and I'm going to jump into Clark's concerns about the rebalance. we did last quarter, as well as we have an updated redline IPS where we're going to make some minor cleanups and also bring you up to speed with all the new regulations coming out of Tallahassee. And I'll lean on Adam in that section. And then finally, we have a standing rebalance letter. As the Fed continues to cut interest rates, we'll want our cash kind of buffer for future benefit payments to be as lean as possible since we're not getting yield in that space going forward. okay so just jumping into the performance report page three And before we get into the individual numbers, so I think 2025 will always be remembered as the year of tariffs and tariff-related volatility, but we've also had another dominant theme play out, and I think the more important theme, actually, and that's AI and the AI build-up. And really, that's what we've seen supporting returns despite all this tariff on and off volatility. But before we get into the AI theme and the great returns from it, We started this year, we got on this on and off tariff roller coaster. Little did we know this was a roller coaster ride that you can't get off of, and it was tariff Groundhog Day every day this year. So much so that we woke up in early April due to the Liberation Day announcements, and the stock market was down almost 20%. which is serious correction territory. I'm glad we made quick progress on this tariff because we might have been looking at very different numbers today. But we did make quick progress on tariffs. And not only have we made quick progress, but in the third quarter, we had concrete trade deals go through with Japan and the EU. And stock markets responded very positively to this. The other concern were how would corporations respond with all this trade policy? And not only were they able to defend their earnings, we saw impressive earnings growth across the board. So take these two things in the combination, earnings growth, progress on tariffs, and we saw the stock market hit 32 all-time highs at the end of third quarter just this year. Incorporate the last few weeks, we're adding to that number. The cherry on top was for the first time in nine months in mid-September, we got an interest rate cut from the Fed. Again, the stock markets responded positively, but it's a little weird. Stock market going up, up, up, hitting all-time highs, and we had the Fed cutting interest rates. Usually, the Fed cuts interest rates when there's some sort of sign of weakness in the economy or something's not quite working. And what we saw was we saw some disappointing jobs growth numbers. Just for example, to put this into perspective, for the last 10 years on average per month, we added 150,000 new jobs to the economy per month. In August, we only added 22,000 new jobs to the economy, and we had some disappointing downward revisions to prior jobs growth numbers this year. So we think they're trying to be proactive, where in recent years they've gotten a lot of criticism for being behind the curve. And just getting back to the AI theme, while companies are tightening their belts and they're not hiring as much, what they're not slowing down on is spending and spending in the AI build-up. And that's why we're calling it the rising tide that's raised all ships this year. And just to jump into the performance, on page three in the bottom right corner for the one-year performance, You can see the S&P 500, the U.S. stock market, returned almost 18%. International markets, the MSCI AQUI ex-U.S. right below that, returned about 16%. And the Bloomberg U.S. Ag even gave us a nice pop at around 3%. So exactly what we want to see, bars all to the right, positive performance across the board. Yes, sir?

So with my... really just the tech market.

Giant companies.

Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Meta. Regular companies. I mean, mid-sized companies mean gigantic companies, but they're just not trillion-dollar companies. They're just puttering along. They're not gangbusters. Is that right?

Well, we've seen large-cap companies be in favor because of this AI boom, and there's a lot of optimism. And that's why we hold mid-cap stocks, is because these things rotate, and so we're diversified. So we're at an all-time high. It's because of a few stocks, right? Maybe in the near future, that won't be the case. Well, we're diversified across the spectrum, and we're investing in great companies across the board. But you're right. Even small-cap...

giant tech companies. That's right. Exuberation.

That's right. And just to show you, so if you turn the page to page four, In the top right corner, you'll see the 1,000 growth number. For the quarter, your large cap growth, which are heavily technology companies, returned 10.5%. Of that 10.5%, five stocks made up 80% of that return number. So exactly what you're saying. But there are good companies across the board. Like you said, MidCap, these aren't small companies. Small cap, that's not your lemonade stand down the road, right? These are $100 million a year in revenue companies. So there are great companies across the spectrum. Some of those small cap companies will become large cap companies. We want to hold good names across the board. Does that answer your question, Clark?

Yeah, it's remarkable.

Yeah. And so just to wrap up that market environment, and based on Clark's question, what you just said, so much is hinged on technology and the AI build up. So I think what we have to ask ourselves just to kind of drive that point home, is if we saw all this terror volatility, but didn't have the optimistic backdrop of AI, would we be looking at different results today? Oh, that's great. Yeah, and while this market is concentrated, while we're at very frothy valuation levels, I don't know that I'd want to be on the sideline either for this thing. Okay, so jumping to page 12, the plan results. So page 12, I'll always say this. This is the most important page in your book. This is the plan's long-term strategic positioning. And what you want to see is you want to see those green triangles, your allocation as a quarter in, to be reasonably close to those vertical targets. so we don't alter the fundamental risk profile of the plan. And you can see across the board, green triangles, very close to the targets. We do have a slight overweight still to domestic equity, which has worked in the plan's favor. But remember last time, as Clark said, we moved 3% from domestic equity, gave a million to international equity, and $300,000 to cash. We will, just before I jump to Clark's question and what you pointed out, Clark, you have a R&D or cash allocation of 2%. This has been a strategic play on the plan. We've gotten a nice yield over the past two years from cash for very little to no risk, right, and very little volatility, and that's been a great play. But as the Fed continues to cut interest rates, and we just got another interest rate cut last week, now those yields are going under 4%. So what we want to do is we want to switch to a mode that keeps this plan fully invested since we're not getting those attractive yields on the short term end of the curve. And that standing rebalance letter update I'm bringing today will help us make sure we're running cash very lean. Okay, jump to your question, Clark, real quick. Page 18. So, Clark, I think you're looking at the fiscal year-to-date number. Let's look at the top half of the page, the quarter-to-date. Right. And you can see we sold a million of Newton.

Which is in the notes, the notes that we asked to do that.

Yes, sir. And then sold $300,000 of Fidelity Large Cap Growth. Right. We purchased a million dollars of Vanguard Developed Markets Index. and then $300,000 went to cash. You can see we're just south of that million dollar investment. It looks like it's about $40,000 south of that. And what Salem has is they have a standing rebounce letter that's a little dated, right? Because these are marginal amounts, it's never pushed a needle. But what they're doing is they're looking at just a handful of funds that you used to have at that standing rebalance letters whenever that was put into place, and their push button kind of raising cash based on what they need to pay benefit payments. And what we're going to do, while you can see you've been well-positioned and it hasn't moved the needle, and I think, Clark, you were looking at the bottom number, that $800,000.

Right, that's the net amount that went into the fund, and we had specified $1 million.

Well, well, that's over a year time period. So we put so over the quarter, you had a net amount of $956,000. Yeah, but they've so they've been slowly raising cash over time over that year. So it looks a little more. but it's these small marginal amounts to pay expenses, whatever the cash needs are for. But what we're going to do is we're going to clean that up today, bring them up to speed with all of your new funds, your proportional allocations, and also our new cash target to make sure it's working lean and everything's operating effectively. It's already operated very well, but just looking towards the future now. Does that help, Clark?

Yeah, it does, and I'm able to say what did the wrong...

No, I really appreciate the attention to detail. That's a great catch. Okay, so we'll jump back up to page 13. So on the top left corner, you started the quarter at $42 million. On the top right corner, you ended the quarter at $43.9 million. So up about $1.9 million for the quarter. This came after $400,000 in net distributions and $2.3 million in investment earnings. So a big whopper of a quarter for the plan in terms of investments. I've got my calculator ready today. All right, so turn to page 16. Getting into the plan results, the fun stuff today. So as I just mentioned, a very impressive quarter for DuPlan, up 5.5%, right in line with your benchmark, ranking top 12% of your peers. Fiscal year to date, to close out your fiscal year, you returned 12.6% versus the benchmark at 12.3%, ranking top 5% of your peers. A lot had to work. over your fiscal year to get this nearly 13% number, and we'll talk about that. But really, you had to have your portfolio firing on all cylinders. So nothing's really detracting. Everything's kind of worked well. Mid-cap has been out of favor. That's a good diversifier, but we'll talk about what really drove that performance. But just to highlight, this is the third year in a row that you beat your return target of 7%. Third year in a row that you beat the FRS, the big plans performance. And the third year in a row, strong double digit returns. And if you go out to the three five-year since inception numbers, you can see very competitive with your benchmarks in the three and five-year, outperforming your benchmark, ranking top decile next to your peers. since inception in line with your benchmark, lagging your peers, but remember that was a time when we weren't working with the portfolio and the prior advisor, you are invested very conservatively, CDs, treasuries, so if you weren't taking the equity risk as expected, you would lag your peers. So one thing to highlight on the five-year, just to hone in on the five-year number. So top 11, basically top 10% of your peers. Remember, for peer group rankings, one is the best, 100 is the worst. And if you follow college football, you want to be in the top one to ten teams, like the Georgia Bulldogs. You don't want to be in the bottom 75 to 100 teams, like Florida Gators or Miami Hurricanes, right? So we'll see what I can get away with. That was a joke. That was a joke. I had one police officer threaten to escort me out of a room in Tallahassee. Okay, so since this is the end of your fiscal year, just going to focus on that fiscal year-to-date column. Total domestic equity, as we were talking about with the AI build-out, this has been a main driver of performance, up 17%. Newton, your active manager, had impressive stock selection, outperformed a benchmark of 12% versus the benchmark at about 9.5%. Fidelity large cap growth, and this is what I want to talk about. Remember, in this area, you've had five stocks really drive 80% of returns. So what we've seen, and you'll see your passive index, which is very cost effective, ranked top 20% of your peers just by holding passive exposure to that segment of the market. you're beating most active managers. And what we've seen is active management has really suffered in the past few years in that space. So good on the board for making that passive. And you can see that 25.5% return was very additive to overall performance. Jumping down to international equity, it's been a great year for international equity, up 17.4%. And then turning the page to your fixed income manager, they've returned 4%, about 4%, versus the benchmark at 3%. So also additive to overall portfolio results. So that wraps up the plans performance review, unless there are any questions. Okay, so we'll jump into the Redline IPS. I'm sorry.

This one right here.

We'll just flip the page once, and I apologize, these are not numbered, so please bear with me, but you'll see a little blue in your targets. And you'll see what we do, and this is how we manage your plan. So we just want to codify it in your IPS. You have your targets. We want to be plus or minus 5%, which is just a reasonable range, right? It's just a heuristic we use because you get over that 5%, and you might be straying from your long-term risk profile that we set up for the plan. So we want to manage our risk, and it's just good policy to keep that in your IPS and make sure we're showing how we're managing the portfolio. In other words, just stay in discipline so that if we're ever overweight or underweight fixed income by plus or minus 5%, it would be highlighted in our report. Okay, moving the page until you see a whole lot of blue and a whole lot of red. And I'll give a brief intro here, and then I'll let Adam take the day. To be clear, I'm not a lawyer, so I don't want to get in trouble with any of that. But these are just the regulations I talked about to bring you up to speed. Is there anything going on? Any retirees? Okay. Okay. Yep, just adding all the new regulations coming out of Tallahassee. So you can see the blue, that's the pecuniary factor. The red is the entities that boycott Israel. If you turn the page, you'll see more blue, just more pecuniary factor language. Turn to page one additional time, more blue, more pecuniary factor language. And this would just make sure the board's covered. If anybody looks at your IPS, they know you're aware of these regulations and that you're following them. And we'll just need a motion to approve this new IPS.

That's right. And it's consistent throughout all the asset classes.

Do I get a second?

I'll second.

Abner Vargas seconds. All in favor? Aye.

Thank you. I'll just need a signature after the meeting. Okay. No, I'm all good, yeah. And now the standing rebalance letter, just to wrap up here, we've talked about this. But basically, I worked with Salem to get your six-month average distributions and expenses per month, and you distribute about $150,000 per month. So what we're doing is we're building a cash buffer of $450,000 just to cover quarterly benefit payments. And basically what this letter allows is if you get over that $450,000 buffer too much, Salem can invest it proactively. And you'll see the bottom part of this letter with all of your managers and the proportions that they should be invested in. If you get below that number and they need to raise cash, same mechanism, they can raise cash proportionally. You also see the $575,000. This is just to incorporate major cash flows that come in and basically says, hey, Salem, please do reach out to Mariner so we can give the direction on this since it is such a large amount. But otherwise, they're going to be raising or investing marginal amounts to stay close to that $450,000 kind of threshold. And just going back to reexamining cash as the Fed continues to cut interest rates, this helps us run a really tight ship. And just to give credit to Salem, it's an awesome service they offer.

that they take in place, right?

That's right, and that's what, we'll update this proactively going forward.

As we change things.

Yeah, as we make adjustments to the plan, we'll need to make adjustments here too.

Okay, and the $150,000 you talked about, that's a net, after contributions, that's a net amount that we need to make all our payments, is that right?

That's right, but your contribution, it's not net after contributions because your contributions are kind of, you know, you just got the big city contributions, so you kind of get these big contributions, right? But they're not really like periodic like your distributions are, if that makes sense.

So if the city makes a big contribution, it goes into cash.

That's right.

And then they will make a distribution according to these allocations.

Unless it's over, for example, and I meant to mention this, in late October, you just got a contribution from the city of $1,350,000. And so Salem, because it was such a big amount, went ahead and reached out to us. We took your asset allocation based on the Fed cutting interest rates, but being supportive because now we have a normalized curve where And the intermediate range, you're actually getting more yield now. And that was also your most underweight asset class was fixed income. We took a million, put the fixed income, left the $350,000 in cash to support future benefit payments. So yeah, if it's this marginal amount, we give Salem. carte blanche because that helps them do their job efficiently. But if it's more than that, we want to put our eyes on it and make a recommendation based on what we see out there.

Do you think it makes sense?

So I think it was slightly lower. I don't think we're moving the target that much. Again, it's a moving target. We asked Salem for the six-month per month average, and that's what we're doing. If for whatever reason we get word the actuary comes in and we learn or we get news from whoever that your cash coming in, cash coming out situation has changed, we will want to revisit this letter. So thank you, Adam. That's a great point.

The other really important question

Dave is a CFA charterholder. I think he got it right when they minted this new credential years ago. Just kidding. When he had hair, right?

If he was not a CFA, I was going to say we're getting a promotion.

Yeah, Dave was an early CFA charterholder.

Just to put that in perspective... of a CFA charter designation?

So I know for Central Florida, we hired the most CFA charter holders of any other firm in Orlando. And I would be surprised to find, now Miami's changing a lot. We have like Citadel's coming down here and stuff. So you're getting big. powerhouse kind of wall street firms previously they were coming down to miami and creating the sap they call it wall street south um so that might change but i think you'd be hard pressed to find at least a firm in our our size um that has more cfa charter holders um i i I think we have around 30 to 40. Again, since Mariner emerging, we have a lot more team members now, but just focusing on the institutional unit, which we've been steadily adding to our one part of our organization that's seen a lot of growth is our research team, which is great. So we're just staying up to speed on trends and doing manager research. I don't know the exact number, but it's 30 to 40 range.

So, I'm okay and I'm happy with everything. I just have a. The form that was provided here, there's no last for the account number. And then the two that were sent were two different account numbers. So I want to make sure we're pulling from the right account numbers. So it's 470. Got it. All right.

Yeah. And so I just didn't want to put that on a public document just to not put your account numbers there. But Yoli, and thank you, Yoli, went ahead and put your letterhead on it and filled in the account numbers for me.

Before I sign, I guess we've got to do a motion. Is there a motion to accept this letter from Salem, reference the rebalancing of the R&D account? Do we get a motion? Sure, I'll make that motion. Martin, any seconds?

I'll second.

Sam seconds. All in favor? Aye. All right.

That wraps it up for me. Thank you all. Appreciate it. Thank you, James. Thank you.

James, nice. Nice first meeting.

Thank you. Appreciate that part.

I don't know about that. Those comments about Bulldog.

Yeah.

Here's the letter. Now, Adam, you're up.

So this is something where I'm looking at these This doesn't relate to your plan, but this is an FYI that everybody, so one of the cities in Broward County, that are the city appointees and the one that they're doing

I got to think the last two years ago we just had to sign off on it I don't know that we had a document maybe we did I think that two years ago was just like a yes-no sort of response but yeah we went ahead and we complied in a timely fashion and listed actually both of the plans here

i don't think you need a motion you adopted the so yeah my view is you approved the policy but here you're giving direction that they should load it because you're ready to be registered with the portal but now you have to use the portal and just because you're rich doesn't mean that it's live you can actually do anything yet no not yet yeah no i think i think the portal is only opening up on december 15th if i remember correctly so december 15th is the deadline

I'm going to say it's the chairman.

Because I wasn't going to be there, I contacted as many of the councilmen that I could, and I didn't get any blowback from them. They just said, you're not in our line of fire, but some other people are. So, I said, oh, okay, that's good. And I just reminded them that, you know, we are governed by state of Florida statutes that they, you know, they can't do anything about, they don't have any say on the structure of the board and many of the things that we do because they just don't. So, they needed to know that going in, but I think they did actually. I feel good after I talked with them.

Yeah, and to add to your point, I've been paying attention a lot to the council meetings, and they're actually going to structure the way we elect our board members the same for the general employees. They're moving in that direction, I should say, and making sure that it's a little more organized, giving the members the vote to get those initial two in there and things like that. So they're moving in the right direction, and they're modeling it after us.

Well, you have to be careful who you elect on the board.

I mean, I was there and I spoke, and there wasn't too many questions, but I think I handled them pretty decently. I saw the tape. You did great. Very stoned. You did great. They didn't really have a lot of comebacks, so Adam, whatever you'd like to add. I do want to add about the phishing emails and scams. So it's already happening here. I don't know if anybody else is aware of it, but be very careful. They're looking at the planning and zoning agendas and the minutes, and they're sending phishing emails to people that are trying to get permits and scanning them out of their money to pay their permit fees and stuff like that. So everybody that was on, like, the last planning and zoning board got a phishing email, and somebody sent, like, $100,000 on that. So, yeah, so just be careful. I have a good one for you.

I lost my credit card. Of course, canceled it, did the regular stuff, canceled it with Citibank, canceled their grades, canceled it, sent me a new credit card. I got the new credit card. I was on vacation, and it was like a week later, and I get an email from DirecTV saying, you know, you've missed your payment to DirecTV. You know, your card isn't good. Please update your information. Well, that was a scam and I went, oh, okay, of course I'll do it. And I was about to go out the door, you know, I was on vacation somewhere and I wasn't really paying attention. Of course, I filled it all out. And Citibank, boom, right away was like, you know, they stopped the payment. I think I'm sophisticated, but, you know, they got me, you know. I mean, how would I know? They knew that I had lost my card. And they knew that they had a period of time there to say that I needed to update my information on the card because it was an automatic payment. Wow, I was shocked.

I don't feel bad. They're good.

They're really good.

All right.

Moving on. New business. Any new business? There's nothing written down.

Can I ask?

Yeah, go right ahead.

There is a conference coming up in January, no?

The FPPTA, yeah, the winter. I haven't received anything. Have you? No. Okay, yeah. They usually send an email.

What I wanted to ask is, since I'm a newly certified FPPTA trustee, I have to, there's certain requirements, right, with regards to attendance? Continuing education. Can you just tell me what they are? Because I don't know exactly. Or does anyone know?

I think it basically means you have to attend one qualifying conference per year, if I'm not mistaken. It may be one every two years. It may be one every two years.

Yes. Not a conference, a training. So not the summer conference, one of the two trainings. I thought it was every year, but it could have just been them trying to get us to go.

I'm wondering if our administrators could circulate to all the trustees It's not FPPTA. Correct. So some of you may be aware there's the Division of Retirement, which is, I'd like to say they're not as fancy as the FPPTA, and it's mainly focused on police and fire as the Division of Retirement. And that way you can, they focus on different topics that relate to state statutory as opposed to the FPPTA's broader. But if you were to go, I speak at the FPPTA, whereas my colleagues people can look at their calendar, and also the certification and compliance requirements for CEU. Thank you.

I'm trying to find the dates for January because I think that might conflict with this meeting.

The January 27th? Yeah, the FPVTA. Is it out already? I usually get an email.

I haven't seen it either, but it's current event.

So it's February 1st to the 4th of 2026.

All right, so then I guess it doesn't conflict.

1st to the 4th.

All right, so it doesn't conflict. So it's fine. Okay. So, have we heard anything regarding Paul Vieira?

Yes.

So, I want to ask about that.

Okay, so that's one of the things I was going to report. So, Anna Klausner Parish, I don't know, from Adam's office, reached out to me last week, and she said that she was having a difficult time having Dr. Locatelli's respond to her request to confirm whether the condition was in service or non-service. So she asked me to reach out to Paul Vieira, and I have. So now I'm waiting for him to let me know, can he help us get the doctor's office to respond.

Got it.

But you made contact with him? Yes. Got it. Okay. Yes. All right.

And as of the last meeting, I do not have any new retirements or new refunds of contribution. And I don't know if Doug has anything.

To the member you asked about, we're currently, if I'm not mistaken, paying a regular pension benefit. Yes, we are. Right. The question is whether or not that would be able to qualify

Yes, he is and he is getting paid based on the final retirement amount Got it So another question somebody that's Coming up towards retirement And I think we've discussed this in the past how soon should they be reaching out to try and figure out what benefits they want to pick I

Okay, so are you referring to somebody that has already met their retirement criteria and they want to start the process of receiving the benefit or entering the drop?

Entering the drop.

Okay, so entering the drop is always done after the fact. So to give you an example, let's say that somebody wants to enter the drop December 1st. They should notify the village. whoever they report to that their intention is to enter the drop December 1st, they should contact me at least 30 days before the drop entry date so that I can let the village know, hey, this member wants to re-enter the drop, please stop their contributions effective such and such a date. They're technically not going to receive their calculation at least minimum 60 days after the drop entry date. Why? Because we have to wait until the last payroll date of that person. So let's say they enter December 1, we need their payroll through November 30. The village may not get us that information, not because they don't want to, but there's like a two-week lag for them to get us that information. Then once we get that information, we send it to the actuary, which is DINA. And then typically it takes GRS anywhere between two, three, sometimes even four weeks. before we get the actual final drop calculation. Then we present it to the member, and it will be retroactive to December 1, but you're talking about perhaps, I wanna say eight weeks to 10 weeks before they see that number.

Got it. Okay, thank you. All right. Is that your administrative report or do you have anything else?

I'm getting back to this scamming. What we're starting to see now are fake bills coming from, and they look legitimate when you look at the email. It's coming from, it looks like the right domain. So we have an account that uses Iron Mountain. So we got in a bill from Iron Mountain last week. and wasn't a large amount that's the other thing they're going for seven or eight hundred not a hundred thousand dollars so we're being extra careful and going to the source the website the portal to pull down the bill rather than pull the bill off of the email and again because of the i think There's vulnerability because of the public records, right? I mean, everybody knows who your vendors are. And so we're having to be especially careful on the bills. We deal with encrypted emails. Our emails are always, when we communicate with Salem on your behalf, it's always an encrypted email. But I see, and it makes me nervous, a lot of other people using non-encrypted emails. Yeah, they're getting, it's getting worse.

With AI, you know, they can sift through so much information so fast, it can get you, I mean, it can get you anything. I'm sure that's how it found out that my credit card had been canceled. Right. So, or lost.

Well, I think you also have nefarious people working inside of these companies. Just like the NBA betting scandal. You've got people out working inside of Amazon or wherever or Citibank that are selling information.

Sorry, going back really quick to the FPPTA conference. Is that something we should sign up for now or should we do this on another day? No, a little more. We're closer to February 1st to the 4th.

You'll get an email. Once you get the email, let her know. She'll sign you up. I haven't seen the email yet.

I'm not able to enroll anybody until the FPPTA sends out the email that the registration is open.

I didn't get the email for the last conference, but I'll be very careful. I'll go online. Okay.

I can make a note to send you all the notice that I get. I'll go ahead and send it to all of you. Did you go to October?

No. Okay.

I wasn't able to. We tried to make it work, but it didn't work out, unfortunately. But I have to. I want to get it off my mind.

Okay. I appreciate that you're wanting to get it early. It's a lot easier. That's why I made it the same.

Yep.

All right. Nothing else? All right. That was an hour and 15 minutes. Yeah, we're keeping January 27th, right?

yes and this is the meeting combined with the GE which means we will meet at noon correct noon noon on the 27th all right meeting adjourned