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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2007-01-18 MinutesPolicemen's Pension & Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes January 18, 2007 Page l of 12 Policemen's Pension and Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes January 18, 2007 A meeting of the Fayetteville Policemen's Pension and Relief Fund Board was held on January 18, 2007 at 1:30 p.m. in Room 326 of the City Administration Building located at 113 West Mountain Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas. Mayor Coody called the meeting to order. Present: Mayor Coody, Frank Johnson, Melvin Stanley, Tim Helder, Sondra Smith, Kit Williams, Amber Wood, Wendy Moore, Trish Leach, Elaine Longer, and Tina Lamb of Longer Investments. Absent: Jerry Friend and Eldon Roberts Sondra Smith: Melvin Stanley is here today. He is our new board member and this is his first meeting. Mayor Coody: Welcome Melvin. Kit Williams: Congratulations. Approval of the Minutes: Approval of the October 19, 2006 Meeting Minutes Tim Helder moved to approve the minutes. Melvin Stanley seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion carried 5-0. Jerry Friend and Eldon Robert were absent. Approval of the Pension List: Approval of the November and December, 2006 and the January and February 2007 Pension List Mayor Coody: Are there any changes to the pension lists? Sondra Smith: The 3% COLA has been added to the January Policemen's Pension list. Mayor Coody: I'm talking about the pension lists, isn't that just the personal. Sondra Smith: No, the pension list is the pensioners and the amount that we pay them. Policemen's Pension & Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes January 18, 2007 Page 2 of 12 Mayor Coody: Okay, that includes both then. Sondra Smith: Yes. Mayor Coody: Alright so you made the change on the COLA then. Sondra Smith: Yes sir, Accounting did. Mayor Coody: Is there any other discussion on the pension list other than that. Tim Helder moved to approve the Pension Lists. Frank Johnson seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion carried 5-0. Jerry Friend and Eldon Roberts were absent Old Business: 3% COLA Discussion Kit Williams: I was asked at the last meeting whether or not instead of doing a percent COLA base which has already been approved by the actuaries that gave the approval by this pension board and the State Pension Board, whether that money could have been divided equally by dollars instead of by percent. The statue says that "any benefit increase must be in strict compliance with these rules". I think that would mean that you could undo a benefit without sending it down to the state but to change it I think it would require six out of seven votes from this board in order to alter it. If you chose to do that then my recommendation is we would take that resolution signed by at least six of the seven members and send it to the state people and say do we need to do another actuary study in order to distribute the money somewhat differently. It's possible they would say yes. I don't know if they would or not. You might think it would be revenue neutral but when you are giving different people different amounts of money with different life expectancies involved we don't always know when its revenue neutral. Tim Helder: Is this memo your option based on that or did you actually talk to someone down there? Kit Williams: No, I did not talk to anyone down there. This is my option just reading the statue. When I see something in strict compliance to me that means you can't just be close you need to fully comply with that statue. I think if we ask them about it they very well might say you need to have another study. Tim Helder: Then you stand a chance of not getting a benefit that you already have in place. Kit Williams: It is possible but because it was a good investment year I don't think you would be in any worse shape than when they authorized this 3% COLA. I think that would still be okay but there would be the cost of another study. Policemen's Pension & Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes January 18, 2007 Page 3 of 12 Tim Helder: If it was voted on that we want to do it which I don't think we would meet the six out of seven anyway, that would be in the final year of the 3% COLA. It is already done for this year so it would be a 2008 issue. Kit Williams: The board has authority to reduce benefits. I think that has an even less chance of being approved. Frankly I don't think we should jump through a bunch of hoops unless six out of seven members of this board want us to. Then we will start jumping through more hoops and start contacting the state. But if there is not almost unanimous support on this board to do it I think it's a dead issue. Frank Johnson: It never came to a vote did it? Tim Helder: No, Kit was looking into it to see if it was even possible to do. Not that anyone was in agreement with it. Frank Johnson: So it will be on the agenda to vote on to close it so to speak. Kit Williams: The other thing you could do is someone could make a motion to do it and see if it would even get a second or you could make a motion that you are not even interested in pursuing it. Frank Johnson: Is this the majority can we do it now? Sondra Smith: Your fund is a little better than the Firemen's Pension Fund but the Firemen's Pension Fund did a cash flow study to try to continue their COLA and they did not even qualify on a cash flow basis for a I% temporary COLA. Your plan is a little bit stronger than their plan. If you send something to the state you might not even end up with the benefit you have now. Kit Williams: It is possible but I think they probably would because there is already supposedly the money in place for the 3% COLA and there was not going to be a suggestion to do any more than that, just distribute it differently. It would take a lot of action on your part to change it. Tim Helder: I don't think we would ever achieve consensus on that. What is your recommendation on how we need to proceed? Kit Williams: You can just let it die too. If there is no support on this board to do that you don't need to do anything. Sondra Smith: Do you want to put it back on the agenda when you have more pensioners? Tim Helder: That would be the fair thing to do. Either that or just let it die a natural death. That's just my opinion. Melvin Stanley: What Larry McCawley asked for was for this raise that we just got this month on our check and one more. Policemen's Pension & Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes January 18, 2007 Page 4 of 12 Kit Williams: When he brought it up there was still two years on the COLA. He was thinking that there was still two to go. The problem is one of those has already taken place. Melvin Stanley: It wasn't for future raises that he thought that money should be divided up. Kit Williams: I think it is a real question about whether there could be a future raise at this point and time. Melvin Stanley: I understand that. Kit Williams: He wanted the next two to be distributed equal dollar wise among everybody instead of percentage wise. Sondra Smith: So instead of one person getting a $100 a month and one person getting $300 a month everyone might get one $125 or everyone might get $150 depending on how it averaged out. Kit Williams: He was talking about the current benefits he wasn't talking additional benefits. Tim Helder: I will make a motion to put it on the next agenda. Sondra Smith: We don't need a motion to put it on the next agenda I will just move it to the next agenda. Tim Helder: Do you all have any problems with that? Then we will have everybody here hopefully and we could discuss it. Mayor Coody: Everybody needs to know what the status is and the strength of the account and all that. Eldon Roberts Extra Benefit Amount - $11,999.76 Yearly Mayor Coody: What is this extra amount about? Sondra Smith: Eldon is eligible for this extra benefit amount due to the number of years that he worked and when he turns sixty. I think that is this fall. He will receive an additional approximately $12,000 a year from the pension fund due to the number of years he worked as a police officer and then him reaching the age of 60. It is a state statue. Mayor Coody: What is his salary right now? Kit Williams: It's on the pension list. Sondra Smith: Right now his gross amount is $7,261.52 Policemen's Pension & Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes January 18, 2007 Page 5 of 12 Mayor Coody: Per month? Kit Williams: Yes, that is what it looks like, $7,261.00 per month. Mayor Coody: So $86,000 - $87,000 a year? Tim Helder: But that is by state statue. Sondra Smith: That is state statue. His benefit will go up about $1,000 per month. Mayor Coody: Do we need to take any action on that? Sondra Smith: No, I just wanted everyone to be aware that an additional $12,000 a year will be coming out of the fund. Anybody else that qualifies by working the number of years required by state law and by turning age sixty will end up with that benefit. Kit Williams: Do we have anybody else? Trish Leach: Yes, there is one more. Tim Helder: Is it Rick? Trish Leach: Yes. Tim Helder: I can't remember how many years does it require? Kit Williams: It is beyond twenty five. Tim Helder: Okay. Melvin Stanley: Watson is already drawing his. Trish Leach: We went through all the files and Rick is the only one left. Sondra Smith: How many years did Eldon work because his is eleven years? Tim Helder: Thirty five years or something. He set a new record. Sondra Smith: It must be every year over twenty that you qualify. Kit Williams: Yes that is what it is. Sondra Smith: It's 1.25% for each year over twenty five years. Kit Williams: It use to be capped but they took the cap out. Policemen's Pension & Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes January 18, 2007 Page 6 of 12 Melvin Stanley: But not until you reach age sixty by state statue. New Business: Election — Melvin Stanley Elected Mayor Coody: Melvin you got elected. Tim Helder: Congratulations. Mayor Coody: Thanks for serving on the board. Donald Witt — Deceased Mayor Coody: We lost Donald Witt. Sondra Smith: His widow is drawing his benefit and she has turned in the appropriate paperwork. 2006 Turn Back Funds Sondra Smith: Eldon asked what the turn back amount was for 2006. Trish completed a little spread sheet and I put a copy of it in the agenda. You can compare it to 2005. Your turn back was $226,826.04 and in 2005 it was $353,000. Tim Helder: It just continues to go backwards, right? Sondra Smith: It seems like it. Tim Helder: I think that was predicted. Kit Williams: In 2004 it was only $232,000, so it went up in 2005 and down in 2006. Current Board of Trustees List — Informational A copy of the list of current board members was given to the board. 2007 Meetine Schedule - Informational A copy of the 2007 meeting schedule was given to the board. Policemen's Pension & Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes January 18, 2007 Page 7 of 12 Longer Investments: Elaine Longer: For those of you who do not know Tina Lamb, Tina is our Client Services Manager and our bond lady she does a lot of bond work. She came from Llama Investments before she joined our firm seven years ago. Monthly Investments Report This portfolio appraisal is the December 31st cut off. Common stocks are about 43% of total and International is about 6.5% so you actually close the year slightly under the 50% limit. On page two there are options. I wanted to draw this to your attention because we haven't done options for awhile, but for those of you who haven't seen this in the portfolio we are authorized to use covered calls as a hedge in the portfolio against an existing portfolio position. To give you an example of how that works on BP Amoco we thought it was trading at about $67 a share and we felt that was a pretty high price, we had cut back our energy exposure and wanted to cut back a little more without necessarily selling a core position. We can sell a call which is giving someone the right to call the stock from us at $60 a share by the third Friday of January and for that they are willing to pay us $7. So basically what that does is locks in $67 a share. Now today it is trading slightly under $63 so we have made $4 a share on the hedge while the stock has pulled back. Same thing with Dell, when Dell reported their out look for the fourth quarter the stock jumped about 10% in two days and I thought that's a little bit too much. So we sold the January $25 calls and locked in $2.70 so that locks in a price of $27.70. The stock since has backed off and we covered the Dell calls for seventy cents booking $2.00 a share profit on the options. So that's how we use options to hedge in your portfolio. We haven't done that for a while because we have been riding this up trend. Coming into the end of the year we have raised a little bit of cash and we have gotten a little bit more defensive. Page four shows the end of the year value is $10.84 million. Income that is received on dividends and bond interest is $376,000 so you are over your portfolio income yield. Including your stocks and bonds your yield is 3.7%. Page five is an update as of last Friday. The market is up a little bit through last Friday like a half of one percent and then bonds are about flat. So there really isn't that much change since the end of the year. The cash position that we have is about 3.5% of portfolio total. We will be using that to add to the stock side and that will again take you over 50%. Page nine is a summary of realized gains and net income. Realized gains are the gains that were taken on the stocks that were sold so that is $395,000 for the year. Net income was $282,000. The over all appreciation in the total portfolio was more like a $1 million because it was about 10.4% on the totals. This is just the realized gain component and also the income which is the part of performance that goes into increasing the book value which is what your actuary returns are based upon. Policemen's Pension & Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes January 18, 2007 Page 8 of 12 Page 10 is the bond portfolio summary. We had an increase in yields mid year last year where the ten year treasury yield got up to 5.25% mid year and then backed off to about 4.6% by the end of the year. During that time period in the middle of the year where rates were the highest on the bonds the five, ten and thirty year we were rolling out of the 4% yields that we had in the portfolio and tapping into those higher income yields. So what you see is the income yield at the end of 2005 was 5.2% and then at the end of 2006 we had it up to 5.4%. In the mean time the average maturity on your holdings went from 7.8 years to 4.3 years. So you have a 5.4% yield in a 4.3 year average maturity and that compares to the current five year treasury as trading at about 4.7%. You have a very high yield that we were able to tap into with a 4.3 year maturity which is still a very conservative maturity structure. You still have about 45% of the total portfolio, the fixed income side maturing within 3 years. That's flexibility built into the portfolio that if income yields continue to go higher then we still have the flexibility in short maturities to continue to increase the income yield. Page 11 is a summary of your largest holdings none of which exceeds 5% of equity portfolio or over 2% of total portfolio. General Electric is your highest position in terms of percent of portfolio; you also have US Bank Corp, Johnson & Johnson, Coca Cola and Citigroup. All of them are large cap blue chip stocks. This is the year that the blue chips out perform the small and mid cap indices and that is the first year in about a seven year period. For the prior six years the small and mid cap stocks have out performed the blue chips but this is the year where we really saw the value that is in the large cap stock be more manifest in out performance. Then we come into 2007 looking at large caps will out continue to out perform small and mid cap stocks. Page 12 shows the weighting that we have in our industry structures, capital goods, financial, healthcare and technology are where we have an overweight. We continue to be underweight in the consumer and the more cyclical stocks mostly because we think the household sector is still vulnerable. The cyclical stocks could be a little bit vulnerable if the economy slows this year as anticipated. We are even weighted in the consumer non cyclical that would be the stocks like Wal-Mart, Coca Cola, Newell Rubbermaid and then energy. The energy stocks are down about 6% or 7% year-to-date which is a huge pull back and the price of energy is down about 14% year to date. It's off almost $30 a barrel from a high that we reach in the summer at $80. Page 13 shows the contributions and distributions for the year. Contributions were about $1,300 and distributions were about $693,000. Page 14 is your performance summary. If you look at 2006 your equity return was 17.4%. The S&P return was 13.6% on a cash basis and 15.8% on a compounded dividend basis. The NASDAQ which is the over the counter stocks returned 9.5% and that's the more aggressive small and mid cap and also a lot of technology stocks. Solomon Brother's treasury index did 3.1% your fixed income fixed income portfolio was 3.5% last year. Your international stocks again had a good year at 17.8% and that comes on the heel of a 20.8% the year before. So again international was really a good place to have some exposure and you have about 6.50% of portfolio in the international markets. Your over all return was 10.5% and that gets your compound annual return up to 7% which is above your 6% actuary assumption. Policemen's Pension & Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes January 18, 2007 Page 9 of 12 What we have at the bottom is your account reconciliation it shows your beginning portfolio value and then the deposits that have been made. The distributions that have gone out are $4,088,000 and the net investment return has been $6.3 million. You stilt have a compounding effect where by the principal value of your fund has not gone down relative to the distributions going out. Do you have any questions on all of that? Mayor Coody: Good job. Listening to these numbers for awhile now what you guys have done with the Police Pension Fund and now are doing with the Fire Pension Fund is very good. I'm very pleased. Elaine Longer: Thank you. We are happy to be here. Kit Williams: It was really dramatic when she was only representing the Police and not representing the Fire. Mayor Coody: Yes. The Fire Pension folks had their own people to work with and it was not this good. Elaine Longer: Thank you. Kit Williams: They had a different investment advisor. Frank Johnson: Someone in the Fire Department? Kit Williams: No. It was Merrill Lynch technically. Mayor Coody: It was odd. Elaine Longer: We came into 2006 saying that we thought stocks were under valued relative to bonds. What happened in 2005 was earnings appreciated by about 20% on US corporations but the US market was basically flat in 2005 even while you had 20% improvement in earnings. So we came into 2006 at a valuation of 15 times earnings on the S&P 500 and that compared to a 4.6% yield on the ten year treasury. So we came in saying that we expected high single digit to low double digit returns in stocks as a conservative outlook given also the fixed income market. Now that we have had a 17.3%, in the equity market return this year, the question is wow that is a big year what do we do now? The interesting thing is that earnings were up 18% so here we are at the end of 2006 going into 2007 and we think that earnings growth will slow to an 8% to 10% growth rate in 2007 but the valuation attached to stocks is about where we were when we started 2006. Because earnings growth has kept up with the market appreciation and the ten year treasury yield is about where it was at the start of 2006 after having popped up to 5.25% it came back down to 4.60%. So here we are facing 2007, even though we have had a big year in the stock market, the relative valuation compared to the ten year treasury is about where it was when we started the year. We still think coming into this year, high single digit, low double digit Policemen's Pension & Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes January 18, 2007 Page 10 of 12 returns should be achievable. Stocks are still relatively more attractive than the fixed income alternative which is the ten year treasury. Mayor Coody: How closely does the Fire and Police Pension policy mirror each other? Elaine Longer: They are about the same. Mayor Coody: Do you treat the monies the same? Is the report essentially verbatim to what you gave us earlier? Elaine Longer: There is a little bit difference because of the fact that they haven't been with us as long. So for instance their income yield was not as high because we didn't have them back where rates were higher. When they came in, I think rates were 2% and 3% as opposed to the higher yields that you had locked in. Some of the core positions that you have are not exactly identical in terms of weightings but they are close. Mayor Coody: Okay, good. Elaine Longer: In fact the performances last year were within a decimal. Mayor Coody: Do you all have any questions for Elaine? Frank Johnson: I'd like to get my hands on the last couple newsletters. I don't know if they are kept on file here but I would like to get that from you. Elaine Longer: We can send them directly to you. We did one in mid year in July and then we did the December newsletter. Melvin Stanley: I don't know if I'm your list yet. Frank Johnson: I can get with Sondra on that. Elaine Longer: We will send it directly to you. We send them to the home don't we? Tina Lamb: With whatever address Sondra provides to us. Frank Johnson: At some point too I would like to know what percentage of your report that I need to know. Mayor Coody: The percentage return. Frank Johnson: No, just basically understanding what is applicable to what I need on this board, otherwise you could be speaking Latin. Elaine Longer: The newsletter is important because when I write it I try to think if you were sitting next to me at my desk what would I tell you. I see on these terminals and that is really Policemen's Pension & Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes January 18, 2007 Page 11 of 12 hard to write because it changes so quickly. We were doing so many changes at year end because the markets are so fluid that it is hard to take a slice in time and say this is what it looks like. That is what we try to do so you will understand why we are weighting the way we are weighting, the portfolio, and what our strategy is. So we will make sure you get that. Frank Johnson: Thank you. Tim Helder: They make us money when no one else is making money. Frank Johnson: That's all that matters. Elaine Longer: That is what we try to do. Kit Williams: Do you ever do puts? Elaine Longer: We have done puts before too. When you are selling a call you are selling someone the right to call the stock from you and for that they pay you a premium. The other option you can use for strictly hedging purposes is to buy a put and typically that gives you the right to put the stock to someone else at a certain price and for that you pay a premium. So they are used differently. Frank Johnson: Elaine there maybe one thing and I may need to talk to Kit about this later. I sent an email to my boss about this meeting and the next thing I know I'm getting entails from legal, ethics and all these other things and it did not occur to me that Wal-Mart is part of the portfolio we have. They just want to cover their bases and everything. Kit Williams: What do they want from you? Frank Johnson: They are looking into whether or not they think it is a conflict of interest for me to even be on this board. It maybe something I need to bring up to the chair or get an option, I don't know. I thought I'd throw it out there and see what people had to say. Elaine Longer: That is interesting because since we are a discretionary money manager that decision to buy Wal-Mart is completely separate from the board. Kit Williams: You don't make that decision. She reports to you. Elaine Longer: I would check into that but since you have discretionary money manager you're not involved in the decision so it is probably not a conflict. Frank Johnson: Okay, thank you. Elaine Longer: If there is we can probably figure out a way to work around that. Kit Williams: You can tell them it is very minor part of the assets. Policemen's Pension & Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes January 18, 2007 Page 12 of 12 Frank Johnson: I may need you all to put together something for me. Thank you Elaine Elaine Longer: You're welcome. Quarterly Report A copy of the Longer Investment Quarterly Report was given to the board to review. Meeting Adjourned at 2:10 PM