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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPension & Audit Committee August 21, 2018 PENSION & AUDIT COMMISSION CHAMBER COMMITTEE August 21, 2018 PRESENT: Hons. Hardie Davis, Jr., Mayor; Mary Davis, Mayor Pro Tem; Sean Frantom, Finance Committee Chairman; Janice Jackson, Administrator; Donna Williams, Finance Director; D. Williams, Jefferson, and Sias, Commissioners; Lena Bonner, Clerk of Commission. Mr. Mayor: Good afternoon, everybody. We are here for the Pension Committee meeting. We’ll call this meeting to order. We have an agenda before us and we’ll follow that. The Chair recognizes Madam Clerk. 1. Receive as information July 31, 2018 investment reports for the 1945 and 1949 Pension Plans. Ms. Heather Seigler gave an overview of the investment reports for the 1945 and 1949 Pension Plans. Mr. Frantom: Motion to receive this item as information. Ms. Jackson: Second. Motion carries 5-0. 2. Motion to approve proceeding with an RFP for the services of a pension investment advisor for the 1945 and 1949 Pension Plans. The RFP will be submitted through the normal procurement process. Mr. Frantom: In discussion with Mayor Pro Tem, thoughts were how often have these plans been procured out. In discussion it’s been many years since I asked Ms. Donna Williams how many years it’s been and we felt like a discussion needed to be had on this for the taxpayers frankly to see if we’re getting the best bang for our buck. That’s where the discussion started and we asked that it come before the Pension Committee to discuss further. Ms. Davis: I was just going to ask Ms. Williams where we are in this process. I know in a previous meeting we had approved moving forward with the RFP so I just wanted to see what the status was and what your thoughts are. When was the last time we went out for an RFP? Ms. Williams: I don’t recall. After the discussion from the members of the Pension Committee, the Finance Department has put together a draft of an RFP which with the approval of this body would go forward to the Procurement Department and would go through our regular process. Once those are responded to, evaluated and a recommendation is made, it would return again to this body for an action. Ms. Davis: To Heather and Morgan Stanley ya’ll have done a phenomenal job and thank you so much. This would be like we do on every other aspect of our government, just making sure that we’re trying to stay fresh and competitive so this is where that originated from. 1 Mr. Mayor: I appreciate that and I’ve enjoyed working with you as well. I do think that it would be prudent if you’ve communicated that information from a draft standpoint to Procurement, I’d certainly like to take a look at what the elements of that are. I think that would be appropriate from a Pension Committee standpoint. If you could forward that to Ms. Bonner and have her distribute that to the members of the Pension Committee so that we can at least have some sense of knowing what are those elements that we’re looking for. Ms. Williams: Let me check with Procurement to make sure that we would abide by all of our procurement processes because up until a certain point those items are not public information. I don’t know. That’s my answer. I would defer to Geri. Mr. Mayor: Yeah, I can’t imagine again from a statutory standpoint. We’re not putting it on the street at the point. We’re simply saying what are we going to include in our request for proposals. I think that this body is certainly well within our purview should be able to help articulate what that looks like. We’re not going to be the ones who decide who receives on the other side of the RFP who gets chosen but I do think it is prudent for us to look at that. Ms. Williams: Okay. I will get in touch with Ms. Sams and we’ll do it. Mr. Mayor: In light of that I think it would be appropriate for us to even if we have to call another meeting for us to at least have an opportunity to look at that. Mr. Frantom: Two weeks from today? Mr. Mayor: No, next Tuesday. Mr. Frantom: In front of committee? Mr. Mayor: Yes. Mr. Sias: Just on your next normal Pension Committee can we get an update reference to all the changes that we made in the GMEBS plan? I would look forward to seeing that. Mr. Mayor: Yeah, I think that’s certainly – Mr. Sias: The status of everything in there. Mr. Mayor: Sure. Mr. Sias: Whenever the next normal committee is. Mr. Mayor: That will be in November. Ms. Williams: Quarterly. 2 Mr. Mayor: Quarterly meetings unless there’s a called meeting that we have. Mayor Pro Tem and I were talking about that early this morning. In August of 2017 we made the decision to go to quarterly meetings so that they are set and determined. Mr. Sias: Well, can we hear about that before November? Mr. Mayor: Sure. Absolutely you can. Mr. Sias: I would appreciate it if we could get it before then. Ms. Williams: The 2% multiplier, the increase, has taken effect July 1 and we have people that have retired as of July 1 who are getting the benefits of the new multiplier and then the next action would be the increase to the employee contribution which will not kick in until January 1 of 2019. Those were the effective two actions and that’s kind of where we are. Mr. Sias: Okay and any comment from GMA reference that as well? Everything in order from that respect? Any concerns? Then if we can, if we could just get a full update from you then. Ms. Williams: Okay. I can do that. Mr. Sias: Then we won’t have to wait until November. Just get a full update. Ms. Williams: Okay. th Mr. Mayor: I think what would be included in that, Commissioner from the 4, is maybe if we just get a summary analysis of the action that we took and just get that in written form to include one, how many people that retired as a result of that, etc. Mr. Sias: Yeah, that kind of puts us on our financial glide path. All right, thank you. Ms. Davis: If the procurement process doesn’t allow this to be put out in an email format or whatever we decide, just maybe if there’s an option to ask Ms. Sams if it would proper for each individual who wants to review it do one on one with Ms. Sams in the office or that type of setting. I don’t even know if that would be something more of an option instead of putting it out because I know once it goes on email, we know what happens in a lot of cases so – Mr. Mayor: Well, now, let’s talk about what we’re asking for. So this RFP is nothing but a request for proposals and this request for proposals is here is what we’re looking for in terms of an investment advisor. What we tend to do is we get here and we sit in meetings and we hear from an investment advisor. But from a comparative standpoint is Morgan Stanley better than Morgan Davis? Ms. Davis: My daughter would say no. That’s my daughter’s name and she knows nothing about finance so ya’ll would win. 3 Mr. Mayor: And it’s just an opportunity for us to be able to look at that. We tend to make decisions based on air as opposed to having something in front of us. Ms. Davis: Oh, I know, I agree. I just don’t want us, I guess, to prolong anything as we’ve decided we want to try to move forward in this fashion so I just want us to at least be able to have an option if the one you asked for is not, you know, proper according to all the regulations. Do you need a motion for this? Mr. Mayor: So the goal was we’d have a short meeting on next Tuesday right before. We meet at 11, we could meet at 10:45 and conduct this meeting very quickly and at that point we can adopt this motion and then move forward. That’s what I’m suggesting. Ms. Jackson: And the purpose of it will be, just so we’re clear, the purpose of it would be just for you all to ensure that you understand what’s being requested and if there’s any input in terms of selection criteria, you could give us that input about selection criteria. Mr. Mayor: That is correct. Ms. Jackson: Okay. Just the fine line, just so everybody understands, I think the fine line here is we don’t information revealed that could possibly give any one proposer any leg up on anybody else. That’s just the fine line that we have to tow. Mr. Mayor: You want to share that with us. Common set of facts. Ms. Jackson: Right, right. Jody’s message just gets to the question the harder the issue is, you can’t get an advance copy of an RFP but if you want to help set criteria for evaluating I think that’s the appropriate role for the Pension Committee at that point. Mr. Mayor: As I heard from the Director Williams, we don’t have an RFP yet. What we have is a draft of here are the things we should include in an RFP. That’s what I just heard. Ms. Williams: We have drafted the RFP. It would be ready to go to Procurement when the approval (inaudible) the body wants to make sure everything that is in that RFP is (inaudible). (Inaudible) distribute that (inaudible) somebody is more competitive advantage. Likewise as we talk about trucks all the time. You can’t draw the specifications to gear towards one result or another. It has to be a generic RFP. Mr. Mayor: You know what’s really interesting is that we’re having a conversation as if there’s some mystery about this process and it’s really simple and it happens all the time. Ms. Williams: Right and that’s all the (inaudible) that I had. Mr. Mayor: All right. A simple request, real simple request. All right. Mr. Frantom: Do we have to make a motion to have a meeting or not? 4 Mr. Mayor: No, we don’t have to. I mean we’re saying that we’re going to meet on next Tuesday and that we’ll take action on the motion that’s before us. We’ve got a request for information and if we can get that information provided to us, then we’ll make the motion on next Tuesday. Ms. Jackson: We’ll provide as much information as we can be comfortable with in our procurement process. Mr. Mayor: I think that’s appropriate. I want to remind everybody that we’re not the ones deciding who that investment advisor is. Okay, that is the key element here. We’re not the ones deciding here. So I just kind of take that away. We’re not the ones deciding. I think that’s the key piece about going through the normal procurement process. All right, Madam Clerk, is there anything else before this body? The Clerk: No, sir. That’s it. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned. Lena J. Bonner Clerk of Commission 5