Fort Walton Beach Council agenda — 08-22-2007 special agenda — reading text

have set- up a calendar as follows: Longman & Walker (City' s Pension Attorney)-- 7/ 25/ 07 - First Draft of Reports Due, to be shared with all parties 8/ 01/07 - Second Draft of Reports Due 8/ 07/ 07 - Final Reports Due for 8/ 14/ 07 City Council Agenda This calendar has been discussed with and agreed to by these Advisors. The content of the reports will be: 1.) opinions on past practices, 2.) opinions on the recommendations made bythe Finance Director!Plan Administrator, and 3.) any other advice or suggestions they wish to make to City Council on the GE Pension Plan. In addition, I will be working with Mark Wiltsie, Chairman of the GE Pension Plan Advisory Committee, to set- up a meeting within these dates so that the Advisory Committee may make or add recommendations to these reports. Please let me know at the 6/ 26/ 07 City Council meeting: If these arrangements do not meet your expectations, so that I can make adjustments to this plan to meet your needs, or If you have specific questions or information you wish to have addressed in these reports. Thank you, and please let me know if you have any questions. 8/ 2/2007  Page 1 of2 Helen Spencer From: Joyce Shanahan Sent: Friday, August 03, 2007 1 : 25 PM To: 4eagles@cox. net Cc: Virgil; Mike Holmes ( mikeycmat@aol.com); Dennis Reeves; Mike Anderson; Bill Garvie; Wayne Pullen; Mike Minich ( mike@seminc. net); Toni L Craig; Lisa Absher; Helen Spencer Subject: RE: Comprehensive Budget Good Afternoon Mr. Hartwell: Staff is not changing the methodology for calculating our actual contribution ( Annual Required Contribution), which has always been and continues to be calculated by the actuary and invoiced quarterly. What I believe staff is accomplishing by utilizing the one- year delayed budget methodology ( prior year Annual Required Contribution) is to assure that there is little or no variance between what is budgeted for pension expenses and what we are actually contributing. The actuary provides the Annual Required Contribution amount for this budget methodology, staff does not calculate this. According to the actuary, this is a standard method used by many cities to be able to know their pension contribution requirements before the city budget is passed for each fiscal year. If it is Council's desire to approve a specific process for budget development of pension estimates, then staff will gladly change the process accordingly. Thank you. Joyce Shanahan City Manager City of Fort Walton Beach, FL Phone: 850- 833- 9504 Fax: 850- 833- 9640 Cell: 850- 803- 9621 HI' C Please Note: Florida has a very broad public records law. Most written communications to or from City of Fort Walton Beach officials are public records available to the public and media upon request. Your e- mail address and communications may therefore be subject to public disclosure. From: James E. Hartwell Jr [ mailto: 4eagles@cox. net] Sent: Friday, August 03, 2007 9: 47 AM To: Joyce Shanahan Subject: RE: Comprehensive Budget Joyce. I may not have presented my question clearly enough, sorry. My question lf a new methodology for the application is... of the General Pension Fund is being why hasn' t it been presented to the Board ( City Council) , from adopted... the Pension Committee via. the Pension Plan Administrator. I would have hoped this change would have received the Committee' s approval and then have had it briefed to the Council for approval. The way I read the Comprehensive Budget, this new approach was more than a ' budget estimate tool' for City budget you have changed the estimates... Pension Plan savings methodology. Have I read this correctly? Thanks for your patience in answering my questions. And thank you for forwarding all of my e- mails to other council members. I prefer to operate totally in the ' sunshine' and to maintain a record of all communications. Jim. From: Joyce Shanahan [ mailto:jshanahan@fwb. org] Sent: Thursday, August 02, 20079: 12 AM 8/ 312007  Page 2 of2 To: 4eagles@cox. net Cc: Helen Spencer; Mike Holmes; Virgil; Dennis Reeves; Mike Anderson; Bill Garvie; Wayne Pullen ( E- mail); Mike Minich; toni@tlcpa. gccoxmail.com; Lisa Absher; Charlotte Dunworth SUbject: RE: Comprehensive Budget Good Morning Mr. Hartwell: The strategic plan has been updated through June and we are working to get that distributed to Council, I apologize for the delay. The budget document is the City Manager' s estimate of revenues and expenses for the ensuing fiscal year. City staff, as we have done in prior years, solicits the assistance of the actuary to estimate these costs for the upcoming year. We did so again this year and Mr. Tierney recommended this methodology and we incorporated it into our budget development. The General Employees Pension Advisory Committee, nor the Police Officers or Fire Fighter Pension committees have ever reviewed or approved the methodology used to develop the City' s budget estimates for our pension costs. I hope you don' t mind, but I have copied other members of Council as they may have similar questions. Thank you for the opportunity to respond. Joyce Shanahan City Manager City of Fort Walton Beach. FL Phone: 850- 833- 9504 Fax: 850- 833- 9640 Cell: 850- 803- 9621 Please Note: Florida has a very broad public records law. Most written communications to or from City of Fort Walton Beach officials are public records available to the public and media upon request. Your e- mail address and communications may therefore be subject to public disclosure. From: James E. Hartwell Jr [ mailto: 4eagles@cox. netJ Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 7: 35 AM To: Joyce Shanahan Cc: Helen Spencer Subject: Comprehensive Budget Joyce. While preparing for a taping of 'City Desk' I was reviewing entries in the Comprehensive Budget. I have a couple of questions: When will the Council receive a status update of the items from the Strategic Plan? I am especially interested in those items that were given a 6 month suspense for full implementation, as we are within 30 of that days date. completion In the Executive Summary, pg 10, under the Top 5 Budget Issues, is listed a ' new' methodology for Pension Contributions!? When did the Pension Committee submit this approach to Pension Contributions to the Pension Board? asked two members of the Committee and they both said they were unaware of this change. Sorry, for this piecemeal approach to examining the budget but I am time- restricted in my schedule. Thanks. Jim. 8/ 3/ 2007  Page 1 of3 Helen Spencer From: Virgil [ vmill63@yahoo. com] Sent: Friday, August 03, 20072: 15 PM To: Joyce Shanahan Cc: Toni L Craig; Lisa Absher; Helen Spencer SUbject: RE: Comprehensive Budget Using the prior year to calculate the next year' s budget ARC" was a direct question that I asked ofMr Tierney when we gave his presentation to the council. He replied that most of the Florida cities did this to give them a real number to work with and that it was acceptable practice. I liked it then and I still support it now-- it is a good business decision. I thought that the council would have a chance to review all the recommendations stemming from the pension meeting but we have gotten into a time crunch. We will discuss it during the budget reVIew. However, I don't agree with the continued practice of quarterly payments. We should make monthly( invoiced) payments into the fund to enhance our financial returns on our investment-- we will be financially ahead because we will be dollar averaging and our funds will be working a longer period of time. Virgil Miller--Seat 2 Joyce Shanahan < jshanahan@fwb. org> wrote: Good Afternoon Mr. Hartwell: Staff is not changing the methodology for calculating our actual contribution ( Annual Required Contribution), which has always been and continues to be calculated by the actuary and invoiced quarterly. What I believe staff is accomplishing by utilizing the one- year delayed budget methodology ( prior year Annual Required Contribution) is to assure that there is little or no variance between what is budgeted for pension expenses and what we are actually contributing. The actuary provides the Annual Required Contribution amount for this budget methodology, staff does not calculate this. According to the actuary, this is a standard method used by many cities to be able to know their pension contribution requirements before the city budget is passed for each fiscal year. If it is Council's desire to approve a specific process for budget development of pension estimates, then staff will gladly change the process accordingly. Thank you. Joyce Shanahan City Manager City of Fort Walton Beach, FL Phone: 850- 833- 9504 Fax: 850- 833- 9640 Cell: 850- 803- 9621 J i!' Please Note: Florida has a very broad public records law. Most written communications to or from City of Fort Walton Beach officials are therefore be subject to public public records available to the public and media upon request. Your e- mail address and communications may disclosure. From: James E. Hartwell Jr [ mailto: 4eagles@cox. net] Sent: Friday, August 03, 2007 9: 47 AM To: Joyce Shanahan Subject: RE: Comprehensive Budget Joyce I may not have presented my question clearly enough, sorry. My question lf a new methodology for the is... of the General Pension Fund is