BOARD OF PENSION TRUSTEES FOR THE CITY OF JACKSONVILLE RETIREMENT SYSTEM THURSDAY, March 24, Minutes

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1 Board Members Present Terry Wood Jeff Bernardo, Chair David Kilcrease Henry Cook Sam Mousa Mike Weinstein Kelli O Leary Bill Messick BOARD OF PENSION TRUSTEES FOR THE CITY OF JACKSONVILLE RETIREMENT SYSTEM THURSDAY, March 24, 2016 Minutes Staff Present Ray Ferngren, Pension Administrator Shawn Bail, Pension Asst. John Sawyer, Office of General Counsel Joey Greive, Treasurer Paul Barrett, Financial Specialist Guests Jeff Williams, Segal Actuary City Hall - St. James Building, Conference Room 3C/3 rd Floor 1:00 P.M. 1. CALL TO ORDER Mr. Bernardo, acting Chair, called the meeting to order at 1:00pm 2. MINUTES RECOMMENDED ACTION: APPROVAL COPY of February 25th, 2016 Board of Trustees minutes Mr. Mousa motioned to approve the Minutes and Mr. Weinstein seconded. The Chair checked for discussion which was nil and took a vote. The Minutes passed unanimously.

2 3. NEW BUSINESS A. CONSENT AGENDA COPY of Consent Agenda for Recommended Benefits for General Employees dated March 24th, COPY of Consent Agenda for Recommended Benefits for Corrections Officers dated March 24th, COPY of Application for Membership Listing dated March 24th, 2016 RECOMMENDED ACTION: APPROVAL Mr. Cook motioned to approve the Consent Agendas and Mr, Mousa seconded,. The Chiard checked for discussion. Mr, Ferngren pointed out the DB to DC conversion, since this is the topic of the day. He noted this one was within Code as the employee served over 5 years. The Chair took a vote and the Consent Agendas passed unanimously. 4. DB to DC conversions Discuss policy Mr. Greive began the discussion pointing the group to the Potential Solutions document that he and staff prepared for the meeting. The BOT was reminded by Mr. Sawyer that they have the decision making authority to set policy/procedure on this topic where employees with less than 5 years should not be permitted to perform the conversion, a matter they decided on in last month s meeting. The Board reviewed past practice of the office since 2009 when the DC plan came into existence and the how the benefit/calculation had been provided regardless of tenure. Mr. Mousa asked Mr, Ferngren, are there any employees with less than 5 years currently requesting the conversion? Mr. Ferngren replied there are none. The Board had a thorough discussion of the options and settled on Option 1 ( also staff s recommendation), that no benefit be permitted on a conversion from the DB to the DC plan for those with less than 5 years of service. That is, only their pension contributions to date would be moved over to the DC plan. Mr. Sawyer assured the BOT that he will update the Policies and Procedures document to reflect that this is now the current practice for the Pension Office. Mr. Wood then made a motion to adopt Option 1 policy ( only the DB contributions get moved over to the DC on a conversion request) and Ms. O Leary seconded. The chair took a vote which passed unanimously. Mr. Greive moved on the the second portion of this Potential Solutions document which covers employees on a pension, returning to work part time and related Code. Code currently reads those working less than 25 hours ( (d) ) on a regular and

3 continuous basis will be permitted to keep their pension payments. Mr. Mousa stated it is clear that Code permits this but those with 25 or more hours per week have their benefit stopped. Mr. Weinstein provided some color here about the legal interpretation of regular and continuous. Mr. Ferngren said that his office is simply looking for direction on when to cease the payment of the pension for those at 25 hours or more. Much discussion here with the Board deciding that a 2 week pay period that exceeds 50 hours will result in the cessation of pension payments for those employees. This will also need to be written into the Policy and Procedure manual. Mr. Mousa then made the complete motion stating pensioners returning to work will have their pension stopped for exceeding 50 hours in a 2 week pay period. Mr. Weinstein seconded. This did not make it to a vote as the Board decided this was a bit of a rush on this topic. They will bring it up again next month now that they are more familiar. 5. INVESTMENT MATTERS - Mr. Greive Monthly investment report - Summit Strategies 10/1/15 actuary valuation discussion Segal For Investment Matters, Mr. Greive covered recent activity in the GEPP portfolio and while not ideal, recent market days have seen a comeback, helping the weak 2016 start to the year. Because the last BOT meeting covered the topic in great detail, this section was kept short. Mr. Williams from the Board s Actuary company Segal, delivered the news and details of the 2015 GEPP, CORP and Disability valuations. For the GEPP, the main topic discussed was how the payroll growth projections have affected the plan s statistics and experience. Last year s figure of approximated 69% funded is now lower at 65%. Mr. Williams said the Florida state law of using the 10 year average for payroll growth assumption is now enacted for the GEPP. The normal past assumptions of 2-3% can no longer be used because the GEPP has actually had a 1.14% payroll growth for the last 10 years. This affects the valuation to the downside, but the resulting Annual Required Contribution will now be higher for this year. The recommended contribution for 10/1/15 was 33.20% of projected payroll. For the CORP, there was slight improvement in the valuation compared to The payroll growth experience and assumption were mentioned here also and the projected payout for the ARC was down slightly in this plan an improvement from the previous year. The recommended contribution for 10/12015 was 68.64% of projected payroll. For the Disability plan, the current valuation was provided at approximately 50% funded and the Board had a longer discussion here. Multiple questions resulted including how this plan came into being, what its invested in and how often is it reviewed for financial viability. Mr. Greive answered it was new when the DC plan started in 2009, is based

4 on Actuary population and experience studies and how it get reviewed every 3 years. Mr. Williams said it was not necessary to wait every 3 years and he recommended a study more frequently. Characteristics of the employee population, Payroll growth assumptions and mortality tables were mentioned in this report. A contribution of $892,543 was recommended in Segal s report. This vast amount of information on the plans was difficult to digest for the Board in one meeting and they requested more time, until the next meeting, to adopt these valuations from Segal. Mr. Williams offered that he is available any time the Board has a question between now and then. The Board noted they realized these are the permanent number and just wanted a bit more time to review the reports. The reports for all 3 are available in the pension office and on the pension drive. 6. OLD BUSINESS 7. ADMINISTRATIVE - MR FERNGREN Non-City affiliated vendor deductions Mr. Ferngren re-introduced the past office payroll processing of including deductions for pensioners that are not in City sponsored vendors and how Code only permits City sponsored deductions (a). He explained the routine on pay weeks where the payroll clerk must printout out each vendor s pensioner roster who is using that institution as a deduction and how each one gets a single check and the pensioner roster sent to them, thus making the pension office an arm of their customer service. He said there are such vendors for whom the Pension staff becomes the customer service department when pensioners have a question---they don t call the institution, they call the pension office. The example of the pensioner who called to complain that his mortgage was paid off 4 months ago and why are we still deducting money for the institution was provided. Mr. Mousa agreed that this, in the eyes of a pensioner, appears that the Pension office is in the commercial banking business, for example. Mr. Ferngren also brought up the fact that staff could definitely be providing better service if not involved in these activities and this costs the office money for all the roster printouts and individual checks. Mr. Ferngren requested, as policy, to grandfather in those who already have non-city affiliated deductions, but to stop the practice entirely going forward. Mr, Mousa made a motion to go with Mr. Ferngren s suggestion and Mr. Messick seconded. A discussion ensued with Mr. Messick asking about pay slip web access and Mr. Kilcrease saying he thinks the Fraternal Order of Police deduction is city affiliated. Mr. Kilcrease read a collective bargaining document that mentioned employees get this benefit of an FOP deduction. Mr. Ferngren drew the distinction of employee versus retiree and how the 2 are different. Mr, Mousa and Mr. Sawyer agreed that a retiree does not inherit the same benefits as a current employee. The Board seemed to agree

5 that, in general, this practice should be stopped in the era of billpay and possible resulting liability, but wanted to think some more on the topic. They requested it be brought up again next month. Re-employment and Part-time/temporary discussion time permitting (Covered above) 8. INFORMATION a. NEXT BOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETINGS The next BOT meeting will be Thursday, April 28th, 2016 at 2:00pm. 9. PUBLIC COMMENT Sheila Caulkins from the REA mentioned she was glad the Board is bringing up the Retirees on a pension who return to work. She said she knows there is a lot of abosue on this topic of returning employees. 10. PRIVILEGE OF THE FLOOR Mr. Paul Barrett was introduced again by Mr. Greive to the Board. He discussed how the Franklin Templeton investment, a former international fund, has now been moved onshore, saving the fund several hundred thousand in annual fees. Mr. Barrett performed the contract and investment work to finalist this Board approved activity. 11. ADJOURNMENT No further business, the Chair adjourned the meeting at 3:15pm