Members Present: John Hammond, Howard Brown, William Brown, Dennis Callahan, Hunter Calloway, Jay Cuccia, Andrea Fulton, Jay C. Middleton, John O’Connor, M. Kathleen Sulick, LeRoy Wilkison and Douglas Willis. Member Excused: Jennifer L. Gilbert-Duran Staff Present: Judi Lohn and Joanna Winchester The meeting of the Board of Trustees of The Anne Arundel County Retirement and Pension System (Board) was called to order at 12:15 p.m. by Chairman John Hammond. Minutes - LeRoy Wilkison moved to approve the amended minutes of November 9, 2006 and the draft minutes for December 14, 2006. The motion was seconded by Jay Cuccia and approved unanimously.
- John Hammond welcomed new member’s Dennis Callahan, Chief Administrative Officer, Frank Marzucco, Director of Recreation and Parks, Andrea Fulton, Personnel Officer and Hunter Calloway.
Investment Committee - Steve Hanson and JoAnn Vitale from ING Lion Fund were in attendance to discuss their firm and the performance of the Real Estate portfolio.
- Rhett Humphries of New England Pension Consultants gave a brief overview of NEPC for the new Board members. Mr. Humphries than distributed and discussed the Preliminary Investment Performance Flash Report for period ending 12/31/06 and the Allocation of Assets by Plan & Asset Class report for period ending 11/30/06.
- John Hammond gave an update on the rebalancing schedule. Mr. Hammond noted that the Bridgewater/Wellington portion of the portfolio was complete. He reported that the next steps are to transition the small cap manager Lazard, over to Chartwell and Buckhead. The global equity fund manger Pyramis, can be split in two and transferred to Globeflex and State Street Global. The final step is in regards to Huff - to keep the 3 pieces that are underperforming and work with the Office of Law to get the paperwork complete and move the balance of the high yield bond money over to the new manager, Penn Capital.
Administrative Report - Judi Lohn distributed and reported on the monthly Retirement Activity Report reflecting retirement stats for fiscal year 2006 vs. 2007. Ms. Lohn also reported that Pre Retirement Seminars have been planned and a schedule of those seminars will be e-mailed to the Board members. Ms. Lohn informed the board members that the pension website should be ready by January 31, 2007 and invited the Board members to stay after the meeting and view the new website.
- Ms. Lohn reported that 1,200 retiree checks for January 1, 2007 were dated for December 29, 2006 in error. A decision was made when the county first took over retirement check payments; anytime the first of the month fell on a holiday the pension checks would be dated the previous workday. This may cause a problem with tax reporting for retirees. They will receive 13 checks in 2006 and 11 checks in 2007. Ms. Lohn also noted that a letter would be mailed to each retiree, describing the situation and instructing the retirees to maintain said letter for their records.
- Andrea Fulton, Personnel Officer, assured that the problem has been fixed and that all future pension checks will be dated the first of the month.
- LeRoy Wilkison questioned the $45,000.00 line item for Payment Conversion Consultant on the Schedule of Administrative Expenses report. Ms. Lohn reported that the payment was for JGI, the consultant that assisted with the conversion from Aetna to ADP.
- Mr. Wilkson also questioned whether taxes should be held on foreign tax investments. Mr. Hammond noted that taxes should not be withheld on foreign tax investments and if they were he would investigate.
- John Hammond reported that our representative group for State Street is being transitioned from Boston to Kansas City.
Other Business - Fran Holmes, Fire Retiree President, questioned if there were any plans to take over the remaining Aetna retirement payments. Ms. Lohn reported that those funds are guaranteed and as a result we would not be able to bring them in house.
The meeting adjourned at 2:45 pm. The next meeting is scheduled for February 8, 2007 @ 12:00 p.m. |
