Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout1990 08 30 Board of Trustees Regular Minutes ~ Pension Fund Meeting - 8/30/90 - 4:00 P.M. Conference Room Roll Call: Art Harris, present Mike Jones, absent Leanne Grove, absent Richard Rozansky, present Camnissioner Bill Jacobs, present Attorney Bob Mead, present Mr. Rozansky said "Remember, Bill, I was telling you ~ might have to change the vesting - well Mead-Municipal Plans have an exemption; as long as you comply wi th the ARlSA-vesting requirements which you do, you don't have to make any change" . Carmissioner Jacobs asked about the employees participating in a like amount. Attorney Mead said "you don't have that feature now - that's the matching- what you have is a JOOney purchase pension plan. It's another kind of plan which you may be referring to which is a 401 (k), which is a type of profit shar ing plan which the employees have to make contributions out of their salary; you can either match it or make independent contributions on your own; 401k plans are fairly popular. It requires your people to take bane less pay. '!bey have to agree to defer income; they may not want to do that. - Mr. Rozansky said " The way we do it now, we have deferred canpensation, and they can defer income and still have the pension plan. I don't see what we would gain doing that". CaDnissioner Jacobs said". I was looking at if any employees interested. in increasing the amount of their pension - but if we amend our pension plan to include an option for the employees to contribute additional monies, not mandatory, but an option, so lets just say that 8% would double the amount of ~ion as opposed to 4%. Since the City may not have the funds to increase their contribution, if the employees would want to increase, I don't off hand see any IOOre paper w:>rk. Mr. Rozansky said "If there is a difference in managing the plan if we have employee participation?1I Attorney Mead said "You don't have employee contributions in any shape or form. That's creating a problem in a lot of our plans now. I don't think it would be in yours Number one voluntary contributions are now included in the overall limit to the ceilings that are imposed. by law. You are nowhere now, so that wouldn't have an impact. There is another problem with a lot of our plans: If you have voluntary contributions, voluntary contributions are considered in determining whether the plan is discriminatory or not. If your higher paid people are making voluntary contributions, but none of the lower paid people are, then you are going to have a discrimination problem. Your plan is not top heavy, which means you don't have a whole bunch of the contributions going to a select small group of people, so chances are, voluntary contributions would probably be o.k. in your plan. These are the after-tax contributions that are deductible. But __ the advantage is that they would be the earnings would canpound tax deferred-- and that's a big plus. .' Page 2 - Attorney Mead said "the only extra bookkeeping ~d cane from the fact that voluntary contributions are fully vested so you would have to keep separate records. TIlat1s not subject to the vesting schedule". Mr. Rozanksy said llwe I re going to be looking at a lot of stuff this coming year - merit and all kinds of other stuff. Callnissioner Jacobs said lilt was sanething that could be utilized _II Mr. Rozansky said IIIf it was I wouldn I t be opposed to i tll . Ccmnissioner Jacobs said IIthen we can make a stipulation in the plan that at such time as you becane vested, you can contribute up to 4% matching funds then you eliminate whose money it is, and pay them if they leave after five or ten years . Mr. Rozansky asked what the max is. Attorney Meade said that the statutory limit on voluntary contributions is 10%. Mr. Rozansky asked if we could give them 8% max for the City, or is it 6%? Attorney Meade answered 6% Mr. Rozanksy said he thinks it is 8%. Attorney Meade said that the statutory limit on the City I s kind of pension plan is way up there. It's not 8 or 6. The statutory limit on contributions you can make is 25%. You don I t want to get anywhere near that. ~ Mr. Rozansky said he thought that was just deferred ce>npansation. He said he thought in our Pension Plan that the max the City could put in for an employee was 6 or 8%. Attorney Meade said the statutory limit is 25%. Mr. Harris asked if the Pension Plan is better than another investment. In other words, you've got money you'd rather put in the Pension Plan than sane other investment. Mr. Rozansky said a lot of the people we're talking about don I t understand investments. They don't make that much money. He said his ~d be different. It might be better for him to go somewhere else, or for some of the Department heads and buy stock or whatever you do with the investments because he said he can't put anymore in deferred cc:xrpmsation because he can defer his taxes. Mr. Harris asked what he would be realizing fran the money he is putting in there. Callnissioner Jacobs said about 12-14%; it fluctuates. Attorney Meade said it's tax deferred savings which is not available; most of the tax shelters are now gone, and it's a forced savings plan. If you give it to them they're going to spend it. Mr. Rozansky said if it were he, he ~d probably put some in. Camlissioner Jacobs said he was more concerned about the rank and file. Mr. Rozansky said he was too. Callnissioner Jacobs said they are earning about 15 to $18,000. He said that 4% is not a living but income at the age when they retire, Eight percent ~d double that, and that's more attractive to the employees. Mr. Rozansky said that in the rank and file, it it's not that much, the average guy is not going to put that 4% in there, because he needs that money to live. Camlissioner Jacobs said we don It knt:M that. Mr. Rozansky said if the City participates, you could give them another percent _ or tN:> in there. He said he didn't think they ~d benefit as much, and if we get the plan, they could put in. Page 3 ~ Mr. Rozansky said the employees are given a summary when they become eligible. Camnissioner Jacobs said that 4% on $15,000 or $20,000 over a period would return if you're doing an armuity at age 57 or whatever it is, we'll give you $12,000 a year at 5%, 6%, 7%, etc.. It's a matter of marketing for the benefit of our employees. Mr. Rozansky said that as long as it doesn't affect the plan and the operations of the plan, but he said he thinks we ought to tell those rank and file employees they'd be better off buying deferred conq;>ensation. He said the only reason he said that is because they would save money right then on their taxes. Attorney Meade said he might want to sound them out and see. Mr. Rozansky said he thought they should be given a complete sheet. Camnissioner Jacobs said that on deferred compensation they have a choice of whether to put it into CDs or cash investment or different funds. Attorney Meade said the deferred compensation program is pretaxed. Mr. Martin, Finance Director, said about 1/3 of the City Employees are in deferred compensation. Attorney Meade said if you go to a matching plan, you'd be switching the kind of plan. You have a 4% plan that's fixed. If you went with a matching plan, you'd essentially be switching to a profit-sharing plan. You don't know what the contributions will be because they depend on what the people do and how they participate. You wouldn't have a pension plan anymore, you'd have a profit sharing plan or type of profit sharing plan. ".-. Attorney Meade said there is a 6% limit on requiring contributions. Camnissioner Jacobs said he didn't think 4% is an adequate pension. Mr. Harris asked if they were looking at this as a total retirement plan or something like Social Security. Mr. Rozansky said to him it would be in conjunction with it. Mr. Harris said Social Security wasn't set up to be a total plan. He asked if they were trying to supplement it to make a total retirement plan. Mr. Rozansky said he would say yes plus any other investment like deferred canpensation. Mr. Rozansky said he thinks eventually we'd like to get a plan like this along with Social Security. You might have to make some other investments. Mr. Harris said you wouldn't be able to live on that. Mr. Meade mentioned the impact of the tax deferral. He said that the more you get in, the more it canpounds. ,- Attorney Meade asked about management of the plan, and if they were happy with the investment returns. Camnissioner Jacobs said "absolutely". Carmissioner Jacobs said he is Chairman of Florida Municipal Pension Plan. He said they had their quarterly meeting last Friday. The fund was down 2% for the year. Attorney Meade asked who does the administration. Camnissioner Jacobs said the League does the administration, and Tri-States Investment does the plan administration from Tallahassee. He said the League is basically the administrator in connection with C&S Bank who is the custodian, and they have an investor analysis that the amount of capital they have is there. All the funds are aCCOWlted for, so we have a check and balance. Attorney Meade said there is no need to change the plan at this point in time. Next year we' 11 be talking about a new document - Congress keeps doing that to us every couple of years. Mr. Rozansky said he felt we need to sit down as a group and discuss it. Callnissioner Jacobs suggested the League or Tri County's giving us the actuary on an average salary at 4% in connection with Social Security, outside Page 4 ~ of what you could put into deferred compensation. Camnissioner Jacobs said he fel t that deferred compensation is looked at in a different light by the employees - JOOre of a long term camnitment if they could contribute. He said if we have the numbers on selective salary ranges, then we can take a look at it before we make a decision. Mr. Rozansky said we can look at the figures after we get the armual report, and if he's going to re-do the plan, we can look at vesting. He said we would get this report and send Attorney Mea~ one, then when we get the yearly armual report, we'll send you one. He asked Attorney Meade when he would plan on doing the plan over. Attorney Meade said probably in the SUDlJler. Mr. Rozansky said we need to sit down after the holidays and decide. The meeting adjourned at 5:00 P.M.. ,~ --