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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2010-04-15 MinutesBoard Members Mayor Jordan Chairman Sondra E. Smith Treasurer Eldon Roberts Secretary/Retired Position 1 Jerry Friend Retired Position 2 Tim Helder Retired Position 3 Melvin Stanley Retired Position 4 Frank Johnson Retired Position 5 Taye evi le / ARKANSAS Policemen's Pension and Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes April 15, 2010 Policemen's Pension and Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes April 15, 2010 Page l of 8 A meeting of the Fayetteville Policemen's Pension and Relief Fund Board of Trustees was held at 3:00 PM on April 15, 2010 in Room 326 of the City Administration Building Mayor Jordan called the meeting to order. Present: Jerry Friend, Tim Helder, Frank Johnson, Melvin Stanley, Eldon Roberts, Mayor Jordan, Kit Williams, City Attorney, Sondra Smith, City Clerk, Paul Becker, Finance and Internal Services Director, Trish Leach, Accounting, Elaine Longer & Kim Cooper, Longer Investments, Press and Audience. Approval of the Minutes: Approval of January 21, 2010 Meeting Minutes: Tim Helder moved to approve the January 21, 2010 meeting minutes. Eldon Roberts seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed 6-0. Jerry Friend was absent during the vote. Approval of the Pension List: May, June, and July 2010 Pension List Sondra Smith: There is one change to the Pension List. We received a Qualified Domestic Relations Order for Jerry Friend. On the May Pension List Accounting has changed Jerry's pension amount and split it between Michelle and Jerry. The total dollar amount didn't change but there is a new person added to the list. I wanted to make you aware of that. Eldon Roberts moved to approve the May, June, and July 2010 Pension List. Tim Helder seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed 6-0. Jerry Friend was absent during the vote. Policemen's Pension and Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes April 15, 2010 Page 2 of 8 New Business: Revenue Expense Report Sondra Smith: That is the report that Trish in Accounting completes for you to review. 2010 Election Process Sondra Smith: We've sent out the ballots and we are receiving ballots back. I have a concern about an issue that was brought up on the Firemen's Pension. We use to have a name on the ballot now there is no name on the ballot. We had someone call and say they didn't receive a ballot and wanted us to send a second ballot. There is no process to send out a second ballot. Kit Williams: This hasn't happened in your group. Sondra Smith: No, this was the Fire Pension. It could happen in this group. That is a big concern of mine. It put me on the spot. That is a board decision it's not a decision that I can make. We keep a copy of every ballot so we know who we sent ballots to. It ended up that the person got their ballot. The U.S. Post Office made a mistake and put it in the wrong PO Box. If we had sent them another ballot they would have had two ballots and would have been able to vote twice, I am not saying that they would have, but it could have created a situation like that. I wanted to bring that up. You may not want to do anything but I think we need to be a little bit more secure in the election process. Kit Williams: Sondra came to me and asked me about this not in relation to you but the Fire Pension Board. I said that she could not send out another ballot, it had to be something that the board might decide to do. I was concerned because it would call into question the whole system. I suggested a different process where there still would not be a name on the ballot but when they send out the ballots they would include a return envelope and the return envelope would have the name of the pensioner on it. When they receive the envelope back in the City Clerk's office they would note on a master list that they received the envelope from the retirees, they would open the envelope and put the ballot unread in a file. After the ballot return deadline, they would then look at all the ballots, they would be separate from the envelopes so we would know who voted which way but we would know who voted. So if there was an issue that someone didn't get a ballot they could be very sure that person had not voted. Every time they received a ballot it would have to have one of the pensioners name on the envelope or they wouldn't count it. I didn't realize that she was going to bring it up here. I thought it was only for the Fire Pension. I wrote a memo and sent it to the Mayor and the Fire Pension Board but not to you all. Sondra Smith: The reason I'm bringing it up is because the same situation could come up. I don't want to be put on the spot. The integrity of my office staff and myself has been called to question. They want to watch us open every ballot now. I wanted to bring it up because I don't want anybody to call into question my staff and our process. The process is I draft the letter and merge the documents; I have someone else stuff the envelopes, double check the list, and send them out. When they come in someone else date stamps them and someone else logs them to a Policemen's Pension and Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes April 15, 2010 Page 3 of 8 spreadsheet. We have three of four people working on it so no one can say one person did it and they are trying to cheat on the election. Why would we want to cheat on the election anyway? Tim Helder: I like your idea but if someone is suspicious they are still going to say "well Sondra knows who sent it and she is going to tell everybody or change it". Kit Williams: With Sondra that is not going to happen. Tim Helder: I know it too. I'm just telling you that people that think that are going to continue to think whatever they want to. Sondra Smith: At one time you said something about writing the name on the envelope or having the return address, but if you want it to be secret I can't do that, because we save the envelope to prove when they were postmarked. Kit Williams: If the envelopes were separated from the ballot then you are alright. You would have to remove the ballot unread and put it in the file with all the other ballots and you don't read them until the time to read them. You will save the envelope in case there is ever a doubt. Sondra Smith: Yes. Kit Williams: You have to trust your election people. Tim Helder: I agree. Kit Williams: I run for election and people count the ballots. What are we going to say that we don't trust anybody. Jerry Friend: I trust her 100%. I think it would make it easier on her to do it like you said and if it needs a motion I move that we do it. Sondra Smith: I have a copy of Kit's memo if you would like a copy of it. Kit Williams: The statute says that it is your responsibility and you set your own policy. Jerry Friend: Kit's memo that tells how it works should probably be in the minutes. So we know how it is suppose to work. Sondra Smith: Okay. Kit Williams: I have a step by step process. Sondra Smith: If that is how you want it done that is fine with me. This person is threatening to call the election illegal and that we did something illegal. Eldon Roberts: Is one vote going to make a difference? Is it over yet? Policemen's Pension and Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes April 15, 2010 Page 4 of 8 Sondra Smith: It's not over yet but one vote could make a difference. Kit Williams: In this case it got resolved anyway so there shouldn't be a problem. He got his ballot and she never sent out another ballot so it should not be a problem. Jerry Friend moved to follow Kit's recommendation on the election procedure. Eldon Roberts seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed 6-0. A copy of the election procedure is attached. Sharon Crosson, Parking & Telecom Manager — Parking Hang Tae Use Memo Sondra Smith: That is a memo from the Parking Manager requesting that you use your hang tag only when you are here on city business. Oualified Domestic Relations Order (ODRO) — Jerry Friend Sondra Smith: We received a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO) for Jerry. The reason I wanted everyone to know is because that changed the pension list. It changed who was receiving benefits on the pension list. That will start with the check in May. LOPFI Sondra Smith: The board asked to keep this on every agenda. You may not have anything to discuss but since you asked to keep it on the agenda it is on there. Longer Investments: Longer Investments lst Quarter 2010 Report: A copy was given to the Board. Longer Investments Monthly Report: A copy was given to the Board. Elaine Longer: Page one is the portfolio appraisal which is the end of the quarter. The common stock part the portfolio is 47%. Page two the International equity holdings are close to 7%. We were over the 50% that needs approval. We are at 54%. Policemen's Pension and Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes April 15, 2010 Page 5 of 8 Tim Helder moved to approve the equity overage. Eldon Roberts seconded the motion. Upon roll call the motion passed 6-0. Jerry Friend was absent during the vote. Elaine Longer: Page three shows the ending portfolio value at the end of the quarter was $8.23 million. The income yield which is the dividends and interest you receive, regardless of what the stock market does, is 3.5%. By emphasizing high income stocks and having rolled our short maturities forward to the 4% treasury, as we could during the year, we have been able to maintain a fairly high income yield on the total portfolio. Close to a ten year yield even though you have 54% invested in growth. Page four and five is a current update as of April 13d' of the portfolio. Not a lot has changed. You are still about 56% equities and money market is at $7,400. I have one client that says I don't need to read your newsletter all I need to look at is the cash balance. I know where you stand. We are still in a fairly positive posture with the portfolio and that has been a good place to be. Stocks are far out performing bonds year to date. The earnings have been good. This is the big week to kick off the earnings season. We've had Alcoa that reported and Intel reported which was very important, between yesterday and today they are up 8% from where they were before they reported. That has pushed up Texas Instruments, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, so you have a lot of things going on that are good as far as the earnings are concerned and that is why you see the stock market continuing to sort of plot along in the right direction. At this point in time short term interest rates, in a six month treasury, I think I can get about .25%. The alternatives to owning equities, the five year treasury which is a fully taxable return, is about 2.7%. You look at the dividend yield on the stock part of the portfolio we can get higher than a five year treasury just on dividend income. There aren't a lot of attractive alternatives to equity ownership out there at this point in time. There is nothing too disastrous out there that would cause the market to really hit the side rails again. At this point in time we are kind of in a sweet spot here where earnings are coming through, GDP growth is positive, the unemployment numbers are still very high but what is interesting is this month we had great numbers on retail sales which surprised everybody. The people who have jobs are coming back out to shop. Auto sales have been stronger than expected. Today we had some trucking firms like UPS and Union Pacific that have reported earnings. The Transportation index is up today almost 3%. There are a lot of positive things going on in the market and the economy but unemployment is still stubbornly high. Companies are very reluctant to add new people to the payroll when there is still so much uncertainty out there, in particular small business. Small business is the job growth engine in the US economy. It's interesting that from 1991 through 2008 77% of all the jobs created in America were created by small business. You look at that statistic and then you look at from the Bureau of Labor statistics every post World War II recession, and there have been seven, the jobs created coming out of a recession on average 75% of them are created by a small business. When you have small business people in a bunker mentality they are not likely to be out there creating jobs, they are hanging on by there fingernails waiting to see what comes out of Washington to get some kind of an idea of what the future looks like before they add that next person to the payroll. Policemen's Pension and Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes April 15, 2010 Page 6 of 8 Even though you have these large cap companies the international companies like IBM, Intel, and Microsoft doing really well, they are not the ones that will lead us out of the job growth problem, that historically has been small business. It's sort of a bifurcated economy right now because you don't have the employment gains that would be indicative of where we are in the economic recovery. People see what is going on locally or in their communities and they can't understand why the stock market is doing so well, it's really a tale of two economies. The multi national corporations, which are tapped into the international growth, are doing very well. Page seven shows the realized gains year to date are about $150,000. Net income is about $44,000. Page eight is the fixed income portfolio holdings. Your yield to maturity is 4.6% which is very good given the fact that the average maturity of your holdings is 6.9 years. You look at a ten year treasury yielding 3.7%, you've got almost 100 basis points higher income yield on your portfolio bonds with a shorter maturity. We don't have a lot that matures within one year, just about 4% of total portfolio holdings mature within a year. A lot of that has been moved forward into the 4% treasury as we had the opportunity to do so at a 3.9% interest rate. At that price we are willing to move out the yield curve a little bit but it's still very dicey out there as far as interest rates are concerned. We watch this all the time on the ten year yield. We may not hold that bond to maturity, but it's as good as cash to us, because when we sell we sell basically like an institution, we can be out of that tomorrow. We watch it carefully because there is a price risk for rising interest rates. It's okay to be out there at this point in time but I wouldn't want someone doing this in their personal account that doesn't sit in front of a terminal all day. Kit Williams: There could be a big move in one day. Elaine Longer: The price volatility, if you look at the ten year treasury, at the current interest rates the measure of volatility is called duration. The duration on the current ten year is over eight, which means if interest rates go up by one percentage point, from 3.7% to 4.7%, in the ten year, the price of that bond will drop by over 8%. That is what we call the price volatility in response to a change in interest rates. To look at the portfolio as a whole there is no place in the market at this point that is risk free, except for the six month treasury that's a .25% return. That is not going to get you where you need to be to fund your pension obligations. It is a balancing act both on the fixed income side because we don't know. There are competing forces in the economy between deflation and inflation as well. You've got the deflationary impact of the housing, real estate, commercial real estate but then you have the inflationary effects of rising energy prices and rising commodity prices. What we saw this week is consumer price inflation was only . l %. We have to be at least cognizant of the risk in the fixed income portfolio. We are willing to stretch for yield in the most liquid treasury investments that we can find and be opportunistic about that but we are not going to fall asleep at the switch and not watch if interest rates break through the 4% in the10 year. We will be reducing exposure there. It's a lot to factor in and a lot of people don't realize there is price risk to bonds. My concern is that the 10 year is an eight, but if you look at the price risk on a 30 year it's more like 18. People that are sitting in bond funds, and think they are making a lot more income than what they would get at the local bank in a CD right now, they might not be aware of the fact that if interest rates Policemen's Pension and Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes April 15, 2010 Page 7 of 8 go up 1% they could see an 18% decline in their bond fund. There is that part of this whole equation that we have to factor into it. Are there any questions on the report? Kit Williams: Who would ever own a 30 year bond? Elaine Longer: A lot of insurance companies when they are selling annuities they are basically buying what they can and they're off setting that with a liability on an annuity and they manage the spread. Kit Williams: I guess the value of the annuity doesn't go up either. Elaine Longer: If you are buying an annuity right now in 30 years you might only be getting 3.5% or 3.75% and they are locking in 4.85% on the government. A lot of times the 30 year is used as a portfolio management piece where they are basically off setting liability and then they're held by bond funds. If you look at some of the bond funds out there you have bond funds that you can buy with 4% or 5% yield but they have a weighted average maturity of 20 or 25 years. Professional investors are very aware of that price risk but individual investors I think sometimes are not. Page 10 is a summary of your performance year to date in 2009 through March 31st. Stocks are up 4.7%, the International is up 2.7%, bonds are up 1.5% so the total is up about 3%. The compounded returns, because of the quick recovery last year from the decline that took place in 2008, you are back above that 6% actuary rate of return assumption that has been the actuary benchmark from the time that we started managing the funds. Little Rock changed that following 2008. We don't really have a good explanation of why they jumped it to 7%. From your stand point, dealing with what you are dealing with, looking forward to your unfunded liability, you have achieved the benchmark rate of return that the actuary set as being the rate of return that you needed to be able to achieve to remain whole. The year to date numbers for the indices the DOW is up about 4.1% and the S&P is about 4.9% so pretty much in line with what the markets are doing. In April we are up about another 2.2% so the stock market as of yesterday was up about 8% year to date. From my outlook I really think that it's highly likely, and everything I say in this kind of an environment I have to knock on wood because my opinion could be subject to change by tomorrow. I wouldn't be surprised to see us hit the high for the year before the end of May. We are on a pretty strong momentum, the earnings are coming through real well, we haven't started to deal with mid term elections and the on set of higher tax rates when we turn the calendar. With the attachment of a 3.9% Medicare surtax onto capital gains and dividend income, plus the fact that the capital gains tax rate is likely to roll up to 20% in 2011, if the Bush tax cuts are not renewed, then what you are looking at is an 60% increase in the capital gains tax between this year and what it will be effective in 2011. That can bring some selling into the third and fourth quarter. I'm really looking at it as it's possible that this run that we are on right now, since we have taken out key levels of resistance, can take us another 5% higher or so, but I would anticipate that then we end up in some consolidation as we go into the end of the year. Policemen's Pension and Relief Fund Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes April 15, 2010 Page 8 of 8 Mayor Jordan: Questions? Thank you all very much. Elaine Longer: Thank you. Informational: 2010 MeetinE Schedule Sondra Smith: I wanted you to have a new schedule showing the time change to 3:00 p.m. Meeting Adjourned at 3:30 PM