Retirement Board Update - Meeting of July 22, 2005 - By Joe Flynn

Date: July 23, 2005

The July 22, 2005 special meeting of the Retirement Board began, as all of our meeting to date have, with a public comment presentation by Mike Aguirre, City Attorney. This time, however, only one TV camera was present.
   Despite the fact that the Board is now down to nine Trustees due to the resignations of appointed members, Tom King, Susan Snow, Robert Wallace, and Tom Page, we were able to complete some Board business. In addition, April Boling, chair of the Pension Reform Committee made a presentation on their final report to Council.
   We also had a review of the 2004 Mercer Audits of the Pension System. This comprehensive audit resulted in a series of reports on how the SDCERS is doing in all aspects of operation. One of the difficulties with the time devoted to litigation and legal threats is that major reports such as this do not, in my opinion, receive the time they deserve. I did, however, question the use of a 4% survey response of both active and retired employees to make numerous general statements on customer service levels. Other Board members thought a 4% response was normal. I am sure we can do better on the next member survey.
   Back to litigation: The Board did vote to initiate a lawsuit to ask Court determination of the post 1996 retirement benefits. Many elected officials have referred to "illegal benefits" which should be "rolled back" without ever specifying what these benefits were and why they were illegal. This lawsuit by SDCERS asserts that the benefits are legal and seeks Court affirmation of that claim. Other suits have, and are likely to be filed on this matter, but the Board wanted to resolve the question with certainty and quell the clamor in the press.
   A July 23 Union Tribune article quoted Ret. Bd. Pres. Peter Preovolos as saying, "... the Board may be close to granting a partial waiver of the attorney-client privilege." At the same time Councilmen Scott Peters and Jim Madaffer were making efforts to focus on which information is needed to complete the city audits. The Councilmen also opposed Aguirre lawsuits where individual current Trustees have have been named.
   Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel.
   The next Board meeting is July 29 which will be a regular Board meeting and will cover all items continued from the July 15 meeting. One item of interest will be a discussion of DROP and rules/opinions on withdrawal of DROP funds by retirees.

Joe Flynn, Retiree Rep. to the Ret. Bd