Old Saybrook Pension and Benefits Board Sept. 26, 2013 Meeting: Minutes
Members Present: Suzanne Taylor, Gary Lehrman, Carol Voigt, Eileen Torrenti, Ray Muratori, Steven Sheehan
Others: Sharon Migliaccio, Tom Forma, Kevin Nichols of Merrill Lynch, Dean Clemetsen and Brian Clancy of Davidson Investments, J.T. Dunn Fire Chief and Pauline Kezer, Kezer Consulting
The meeting was called to order at 7:06 p.m. and introductions were made.
Investment Reports
Davidson: Brian Clancy, one of the primary analysts, explained the make- up, philosophy and team strategy of the company, which is a 100% employee owned company founded in 1935. Main offices are in Seattle and Great Falls Montana. Dean Clementson is the marketing manager who will be ours and Merrill Lynch’s main point of contact.
Re Merrill Lynch, Tom Forma and Kevin Nichols presented the board with 2 large books describing the year to date results of all of our investments. To date we are invested as follows: 70 percent in equities, 27% in fixed income and the remainder in cash. As of Sept. 25 there is $17,851,642.00 in the Pension Funds and $964,503.00 in the Health Care Reserve fund. Also noted was the fact that the board had approved pooling the Blue Cross funds, which had been in a separate bond account, into other town funds at Liberty bank in order to generate more interest. A motion was made by Steven Sheehan and seconded by Ray Muatori to note the interest earned each month that should be attributed to these funds. The motion was unanimously approved.
Tom reminded the Board that they had asked for Invesco to meet with them at the November meeting. The board continued to think that would be a good idea. Tom suggested that we should meet our other new investment manager, London out of Richmond, Va. The Board agreed to meet with them by speaker phone at the October meeting.
Health Insurance Information: presented by Franca Shillington of Brown and Brown.
She spoke primarily about the new insurance requirements and handed out a flyer concerning a summary of several significant changes required under the new Health Care Act. Members of the Board asked many questions and felt that her answers were most helpful. The Board requested copies of the town’s health care description that have been delivered to employees and is known as SBC. Franca agreed to send the information to Sharon to be forwarded to Board members.
Chair’s Report
Attendance at the July 22-24th Opal Conference, Public Funds Summit East: “Navigating the Future” included Suzanne and Ray Muratori. One of the panels which discussed both sides of the DB/DC debate included a power point presentation by our Actuary Steve Lemanski. Copies of these were provided to the Board members.
Also distributed and discussed briefly were copies of the Chair’s 2013 Annual Report which will be included in the annual town report.
Information on the next CT. Public Pension Forum meeting was handed out. The Forum will be a morning meeting in the Rocky Hill Sheraton Hotel on Oct 31st. The topics to be addressed include the following: .Today’s Economy, Trick or Treat in the DB/DC debate and Investment Strategies. Interested members can contact Sharon if they wish to attend.
The retirement of Lucy Young was approved effective Oct. 1 and the Board requested that Sharon send a Congratulation Card to her on our behalf. Her cherry and helpful manner was especially noted by Steven Sheehan.
Old Business:
The 457 Plan
Discussion of the 457 plan ensued first with a request by Gary to assist him with getting access to data from ICMA in the future. Sharon indicated that she could do that in the future. Therefore it proved unnecessary for Gary to have written a request of authorization from the Selectmen to obtain this data as Sharon has agreed to provide the data from now on.
Gary’s report about ICMA indicated that the total amount of funds in employees 457 plans equaled $1,026,184.23 The total active membership equaled 28 with an additional single non-active member totaling 29 members. Gary also noted that the next educational session by ICMA will be on Oct. 8th in the early afternoon. A copy of the report is attached.
Discussion concerning the School Resource Officer position as it relates to retirement eligibility was postponed until the October meeting.
Fire Department Concerns
As long as there was discussion re the 457 plan Chief Dunn inquired re the possibility of including the firefighters by having their tax waiver credits directly deposited into a 457 account and they would remit the full taxes due to the town. Since the IRS considers volunteer firefighters as employees and they are issued W2s to account for the amount of credit they receive for the waiver and so must include that amount in their annual federal income tax it seems logical to think this is feasible . It was agreed that Gary and Suzanne would explore the matter further with Laura Hancock of ICMA.
As to the Fire Department Valuation all the necessary data needed by the actuary has been provided so the biannual evaluation may proceed. One last question that needed clarifying included the ability to report the officer incentive on a pro-rata basis. This was deemed possible and has been done.
It was also noted that various changes to the firefighters’ plan since 2008 had not been fully incorporated into an existing up to date document and Suzanne and John have begun to work on doing the update.
Actuarial Matters
It was reported that the actuary has provided all the needed information requested by the auditors. Milliman has also submitted two bills since our last meeting: The first is $13,250 for the town valuation and the second is for 4 retirement calculations amounting to $1,947.50. A motion was made by Steve Sheehan and seconded by Gary Lehrman authorizing payment of the total of $15,197.50. The motion passed unanimously. As approved at the July meeting a proposal from our actuary concerning a study of possible pension plan alternatives has been received and sent to the members for review prior to this meeting. Due to the lengthy discussions planned for this Sept. meeting the proposal will not be discussed until the actuary’s availability which
appears to be at our November 21st meeting. At that time the nature of the study as it relates to various options for changes in our pension plan will be considered.
New Business
Speaking briefly to the board Pauline Kezer presented a flyer describing a web based health care resource. She requested coming to the next meeting to discuss the matter further.
One final matter was presented as new business, which involved a request from a former police officer now on disability to add an additional member to his health insurance plan. It also appeared that it had been over a year since the board had granted his disability. In as much as the plan document requires a periodic review of eligibility, the board requested, via a letter sent from Sharon, that he attend the Sept. meeting and provide evidence of his continued disability. He responded with a letter saying he could not attend, but enclosing a notice from Social Security indicating he was still receiving their disability. After review the board voted unanimously to grant him continued disability.
It was reported by Sharon that the request from this disabled retiree to add his future spouse to his retiree health insurance was granted by Lisa Carver and Carl Fortuna.
No action or information was presented concerning the status of the town’s health insurance negotiations.
There being no further business Steve Sheehan made a motion to adjourn, which was seconded by Gary Lehrman and all approved. . The meeting ended at 9:45 p.m.
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