# Police & Fire Pension Subcommittee Meeting - October 27, 2025 > Auto-transcribed civic record · October 27, 2025 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6600 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6600?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2025-10-27 - **Last revised**: February 15, 2026 - **Length**: 16,595 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Pension Committee held a meeting presided over by Greg. The committee addressed one agenda item — a discussion on pension fund changes — which was informational in nature. Over the course of the meeting, one vote was taken, and no public comments were heard. ## Attendance The following members were present at the October 27, 2025 meeting: - Greg - Tommy - Aaron - Susan - Rock - Trey No members were recorded as absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions The following motion was considered and decided during the meeting: - **Motion to Adjourn** [timestamp: 1:32:54]: A motion to adjourn the meeting was brought forward and passed by voice vote. No roll call was conducted, so individual member votes are not recorded. The motion carried without recorded ayes or nays. ## Contested Items Two topics generated significant debate during the meeting. **Unfunded Liability and Actuarial Trust** A heated discussion arose around the reliability of actuarial calculations and how potential changes might affect the pension fund's unfunded liability. Participants expressed differing views on whether the actuarial figures could be trusted as a basis for decision-making. No additional details are available regarding which specific parties took opposing positions or what outcome, if any, was reached. **Officer R Program** The committee also debated the financial impact of the Officer R program on the pension fund. Views diverged on whether the program was ultimately beneficial or detrimental to the fund's financial health. As with the actuarial discussion, the available record does not specify which individuals or factions held which positions, nor does it indicate a definitive resolution. ## Discussion on Pension Fund Changes [timestamp: 0:00] The committee held an informational discussion on potential changes to the pension fund, covering several proposed modifications and the concerns they raised among members. Key topics under consideration included: - **20-year retirement option:** The possibility of allowing retirement after 20 years of service was raised as a potential structural change to the fund. - **Multiplier increase:** Committee members discussed the prospect of increasing the pension multiplier, which would affect benefit calculations for retirees. - **Cost-of-Living Adjustments (COLAs):** Implementing COLAs was also on the table as a way to help retirees keep pace with inflation over time. Speakers including Greg, Tommy, Aaron, Susan, Rock, and Trey participated in the discussion. While the specific positions of individual speakers were not detailed in the summary record, the conversation reflected a range of perspectives on the feasibility and implications of these changes. A significant portion of the discussion centered on concerns about the **unfunded liability** that could result from expanding pension benefits. Members also raised questions about **trust in actuarial calculations**, suggesting some skepticism or desire for greater transparency regarding the projections used to evaluate the fund's financial health and the long-term cost of any proposed changes. No formal action was taken. The discussion was informational in nature, serving as a preliminary review of options rather than a decision-making session. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Motion to adjourn --- ## Full transcript All right. You ready to call this meeting to order? I am going to defer to Greg. You all have apparently did a survey and stuff on some items, in my understanding. Is that correct? Yes. OK. So I wasn't here when you all had apparently done the study to look at potentially going to the 20 years. So I don't even know how it resolved and how it played out. I know you all got the information and had looked at it. So when I was looking through it, and I'll be honest with you, some of it I don't understand. But it didn't look like some of the options even changed the unfunded liability, the funded ratio significantly, if at all. So I was wondering if there was something that we had decided on and looked at it or not. And I know the study is at least a couple years old. So I know it had been brought up by the FOP as far as, is there something we can still potentially look at as far as putting our people back on the 20 or changing the age or looking at COLAs or all of that. So that's what we wanted to bring up to this committee as far as the option of doing another actuarial study and then following through to see if this is even something we can fiscally, financially do. So I don't know what y'all's thoughts were as far as, what happened to it last time? Nothing. It kind of just died because COLAs were a big hangout and they're super expensive. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I know COLAs are. Well, but the option, so the option was, though, like any one of those, was it not? Because it wasn't a package deal, was it? I think we were trying to make it kind of a package deal to kind of get a little bit of something for everybody. And it just kind of fell apart. I think they were all, they were run as packages, weren't they? Yeah, because didn't we run a group? Well, they were run as, it looks like they were all run as individuals. But then, well, no, we ran something together as well. Well, we ran five different scenarios of the age and retirement thing. Yeah, with the multiplier change, the years. And then I saw a COLA in there as well, but that. If I remember correctly, I think it was changing one to finance another type of situation. Changing disability to finance a COLA or a years of service. And I have a question about the disability. So if, say, somebody comes to us for disability and we deny them, are they able to go back to work on the job? It's not our call. Not unless they get their doctors to. So what happens if they come to us for disability, we deny them? OK. So are police or fire going to let them come back online? Not until they get a release from their doctor. I mean, that's not our. I agree, but I'm curious what's. We've had somebody that got denied and he came back on. I mean, he continues to work. I mean, it's up to the individual. But basically, as you know, that right now you have two years. It used to be one year to get back if you get an injury. And you've got two years to come back. If at the end of that two years, they get a letter from personnel that tells them that they either need to come back to work, they basically can resign, or they can apply for a disability. Well, obviously, most everybody does the disability. And the issue is, like she said, we've had one that got denied and he came back to work. I mean, it entirely falls back on him. It's not the board. No, it's definitely not ours. But I'm more kind of curious, like the administrations, are they going to let them come back with a disability? It should be noted that they only have one year. And they have the option to get an extension. So they do a lot of times. If their doctor says they're at MMI, then the department's not wanting them back. But obviously, I mean, I guess if the department decides or the doctor comes back and says they're not at MMI anymore, then they could come back to work. I mean, we deal with that a lot. The department calls and says, they're at MMI. Their work status says they are not going to be able to be better. They're moving on through the process through disability. So technically, if we deny them, they have an MMI, right? Then they couldn't go back to work unless a doctor says they could, and the department accepts it. At that point, it would not be up to us. Right. Or they can apply for a non-op after five years. We've had some do that. Yeah, we probably won't do that more recently. Mm-hmm. OK. Does that answer your question? Mm-hmm. So I mean, so I guess I'm still trying to figure out what we did within what you all think is a collective group as far as moving forward and taking a look at the feasibility of it. Because if it doesn't affect the funded liability, if there's any way that we can get at least some kind of COLA is for, I think, I do like the fact of the COLA. I know they're the most expensive. That's detrimental. But we've all seen what inflation is. And O'Rourke brings it up every time, talking about the inflation. I mean, we did a comparison of if you had retired 10 years ago, how far you'd be behind right now just because of those three bad years of cost of living. Obviously, we can offset cost of living, those that are still working, because we can increase our wages, which is exactly what happened. So now we're still back with the same purchasing power, but retirees are not. So what we're wanting to do, though, as far as the police side, is we are interested in doing another study, since this one's going to be old, into looking at what if we change the time parameters, age parameters, and, of course, COLAs, and what a combination of those would look like. So are you just wanting to do your study on your old survey that you conducted with your members? Well, no. That's where this, I mean, obviously, the subcommittee here would make the decision. Because those were thrown together as ideas that we had as far as, OK, a 20 versus the 25, going to 45 instead of 50. I mean, personally, I would be open to whatever we all think as a collective whole, as our two sides, police and fire, would be interested in. Because unfortunately, the survey that was sent out by the FOP, it wasn't able to bear it down as far as, what do you prefer? If you had to choose a 20-year pension or go into a 2.5% multiplier, which one would you prefer, one or the other? So it was just basically, would you like the idea of a 20, or a 2.5, or COLAs? And of course, who's going to say no to that? Because they're all beneficial, whether you get one, all, or none. What were the results of the 20 versus the 2.5%? Well, so it wasn't broken down at all. Do you propose at least looking at these changes? And that's where I would have liked to have known what specifically they value the most. Because it doesn't affect a lot of us. Because we're already on the 20. So it's not going to affect us. But those people that are on the 25 or the 2.25, what do they value most, being able to go earlier or having the greater multiplier? I'd rather have the multiplier, I think, the majority, than one of the years. I don't know why. I would prefer the multiplier. I would prefer, again, COLAs, because that takes care of everybody, retirees now, employees in the future. But I get it, and I get it. I know how it would crush the funded liability, potentially. So you'd have to make drastic changes to set any COLA. I think back at the envelope math, it's like a million dollars per percent increase in a COLA. I will speak to, I'm not on the committee, obviously, but have been here through a lot of this. I think for me, it's always goal-oriented, right? What is the ultimate goal here? Is it just to make changes? Is it not, what is it? If it is to, hey, let's look at getting COLAs, and then we've got to adjust things accordingly, then that's your goal. If the goal is to affect recruitment, then that's your goal. If it's to affect retention, which is, in my opinion, probably just as important, if not more important, than recruitment, we have to set a goal. I mean, it's like having a mission statement or something. It sounds cliche, right? It's all three of those. What started this conversation is, the changes had been about 10 years ago. So it was kind of like, well, it's been 10 years. Let's see, is this working? Do we need to change anything? And then we came up with some ideas, but it's just been like stagnant since then. We haven't come to a consensus as a subcommittee. Well, that's what I'm asking. I think the goal, and that's what I wanted to get from the survey that didn't really exactly get it, but I think the goal is keeping the fund funded, number one, obviously, but number two, doing what the people that the fund is there to serve want. That includes retirees and current employees. And if they're wanting the 20 and it doesn't adversely affect the pension, it looked like it only changed it to a percent or two in funded liability. It actually probably increased, decreased the unfunded liability, did it not? I mean, in some regards, but it's nominal amount. Let me interject. I have been having a bunch of phone calls from firefighters. So I have been going to lots of fire stations. I was going to ask that was before or after you started going to all the fire houses, but go on. Before. OK. That's why I did it. OK. Because there was all these people about rumors and didn't have a full understanding of the pension. I mean, there were some that thought that after 25 years, their 2 and 1 quarter doesn't count and stuff like that. You maxed out at 25 years. There was all kinds of different ideas that were incorrect. So I basically tried to just explain what they thought we were going to make changes. I know we're looking at things at this point. And the big thing that I found from the firefighters, and I have gone to at least one shift from every station except three, like three that I have not gone to. And they seem to be more in favor, instead of 20 in and 20 out, of the 2 and 1 half instead of the 2 and 1 quarter. Because realistically, and I agree with them on this, is I mean, how many people are going to leave at 20 years? That's 50%. A lot. Or 45. I disagree with you. But anyway, so the thing is that, and the other thing is they obviously have some animosity. This guy before 2013 is making, I'm going to get 2 and 1 half, and I'm going to get 2 and 1 quarter. Doing the same job. Insane. You know, so, you know. But again, that seems to be the majority that I've talked to. If you had to speak for the firemen, what do you think their preference would be, a 20, or if they had to choose between a 20, or the multiplier? I think we have a somewhat inconclusive survey, as of late, and it gathered information from about half the people we sent it out to. It does seem to be there's a slight favor, like Tommy said, to the 2 and 1 half percent multiplier. But it's a close. In my opinion, it's so close that we need to narrow the field of surveying down, and try to get more correspondence. Does that make sense? OK. That's just my take on it. You know, I think we could get into something. Obviously, we're here with a group of people, you know, FOP, union, whatever. Like, we've all kind of had this synergy together to understand what it is our membership wants, what could be doable if we were doing anything, right? And I think there's maybe a hybrid model we can work from there, you know? I mean, is there a world where you could get out of here for, we'll call it decreased annuity, for after 20 years, and still set the minimum age a bit high? Or is it, and then have an additional multiplier after that, you know? Obviously, where I stand, I've been here for a while, but the drop plan was something that we mentioned and we were advocating for. And that seemed to be a bipartisan, not a bipartisan thing here. It was just kind of us talking about it. And to Tommy's point, how all these firemen are reaching out to him, there were police officers who emailed me that said, these cops that are here, and this is even before, I think, both of your time, they're not speaking on what we want. Like, we like the idea of a drop plan. Don't let them speak for us. And I was like, OK. And that was it, you know? So I think there's some ideology there. I know, like, the drop plans did. You guys sent out something to your membership that, again, made it to us, obviously. And it was like, hey, the fire department's not willing to talk anything if it's not a drop plan, which is incorrect. I think it was a crock. I like the drop plan. I like it. I emailed somebody because I want it. Yeah, and maybe you did email me, but I had a couple, right? Oh, yeah, no, I've heard them. And so anyway, and that's fine, like, right? But that's not completely true either. We're not hung up on it. It's kind of like your comparison from having a 20-year guy and a 25-year guy in the same room. It's always about, like, what does he have? What does he have? And that's the way we feel looking at you guys and you having to rehires and things like that. So that's where we come from, our basis from this drop plan. So it's not completely true that we have to have a drop plan to discuss any of these changes. I want to clear the air on that because I saw that here. I was literature, which you sent out. Drop plan is a completely separate beast. Right, and that's fine. I'm not here winning. I don't want to pull the string of the drop plan right now. I just want to make it clear that we're receptive to hearing what you guys like or don't like, too. What do you think as far as police, the guys on the 25? What have you heard? Well, as a member of the guys of the 25, I certainly would be more in favor of the increased multiplier as opposed to a reduced service time from a numbers perspective because I'm not sure how many people are going to be able to take a 50% pay cut at your 20 anyway. Turns out that generally is the most expensive time to be alive other than when you get old and then retire at home. So I think there is probably some utility in drilling down a little bit and getting that more targeted number for the people who are just on the 25-year plan, who it would affect, to figure out for sure who feels what because it's going to depend on the person. If you're older and you start this job, you're going to want less years of service. If you're younger, you're going to want the increased multiplier. It all depends on the person. I think for most people, they, I can't say for most people because I don't know. But I'd say it's probably pretty split. I've really felt like it's pretty split. A lot of people want 20 years. A lot of people want 2 and 1 half. Personally, I want my time to matter just as much as somebody else's. Whether or not I have to stay longer or not, I think that my time is worth just as much as yours or yours or yours. So I'm not sure if we actually have an accurate depiction of what our people want, at least the people who it would affect the most. And as far as the drought plan goes, I'm not against the drought plan either, just for the record. I'm not sure what the most latest details are, but that's certainly not. I'm open to options. Always open for more options. I hate our officer R program. I don't like it at all. And frankly, from my perspective, and I'm just one fellow, but I view the officer R and the drought program as two totally different things. What is the officer R? Is that the rehires? Just the rehires, yeah. And there's no reason you can't have both coexisting. Right. It seems like a totally different thing. And for somebody to be a police officer for 20 years, not retire on a disability, leave, and still want to come back and still be willing to go back to the street with all the young kids, that's a very small niche population. We've got like 10 dudes doing it? Nine. It's about a, it's almost a $900,000 population. That's what, I mean, that's what it costs. And those people are getting benefits from our pension and then not paying 12% a year. Because they've already paid in, and they're outsiders. And we're also not getting the city's contribution on theirs. Because they've retired. Just like when you retire, we won't be getting your contributions. But we don't get to come back, am I right? But we don't get to come back, yeah. And we're $130 for sure. Well, I don't, I mean, that's, you know. And I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't want to get super contentious. But you know, the reason why we have an officer R program is because we went to Frankford, and we lobbied for it, and it was approved by our chain of command. And you know, feel free to do the same. I don't know the logistics of how you're organized versus how we're organized. I don't know, I don't know your world. Right, just like you don't know our world. And I don't want to say there can't be a firefighter R program. I don't know if there can or not. I just think that the drop program, the retire program. And I don't want this conversation to fall off the rails. But here's the point of contention. Is it can get there, right? And I'm the person who quickly gets there. So maybe I took two happy pills today. If it is costing that much money, where does that money come from? And it comes from our, some of it comes directly out of our pension fund. It's dollars not funneling back in, which creates a higher unfunded liability. And that is our gripe. Never once, not a single time, I've been here the longest, except for Tommy and Rock, has it came to this pension board about the re-hires, and it directly affected it. So it wasn't a judicial decision in my mind, right? Is it, you know, like making legislation that changed. I am sympathetic to the fact you need more officers. More officers for you, more protection for us. On an operational standpoint, I get down with that, right? Like I will never discredit that. I think the issue is, is that you have, in my understanding, and this is without doing a ton of reconnaissance, is that you have like $800 some thousand in re-hires. Those people are coming back at a fairly sizable clip in terms of officer pay. That doesn't include lateral transfers. I don't think you guys will take somebody from Georgetown. Wouldn't that be, you know, if we could pay them less and get an officer on the street, and I get it apples to apples, we couldn't take a fireman from somewhere else, expect them to fall in line with us. But to that point, there's also, you know, these clerk jobs. There's a lot of things out there. And we're like, whoa, what is this? You know, we're seeing a lot of retirees. We're seeing a lot of other people, and they're coming back to this. I mean, I'm a part of a union. I'm not on the union board. I'm not a union guy. You know, but when somebody takes a benefit and then comes back for what is kind of stepping over, again, you look at the guy beside you, like, well, that guy, sure, he retired, but they're also, we're not getting that benefit that we would normally get. And so when Ms. Hensley looks at her unfunded liability, and it's like, wow, this is daunting, you know, we're not creating a better situation by having the rehires from a financial standpoint within the, you know, within the pension, you know? So again, I get it. Operationally, I'm sympathetic to that. I really am. We rely on you guys a lot, and likewise. But that's where one of our grips are in terms of that drop plan, right? Like, we think we can retain more firemen at a level, right? Like, you know this. Would you rather have the first year dude? I mean, this may not be, but you know, would you rather have the first 16-month guy on the street, or would you rather have the guy that has 20 years on, right? Like, one of them has an operational discipline that the other one doesn't. And that's what we could, I feel like that's what we could have. That could be the retention piece to all of this, which could allow somebody to leave with 20 years. And that's why this whole thing got started with that drop plan and stuff. And that's where some of that point of contention came from. I mean, if you've got 10 officers that aren't paying in, 10, what is that, 80-some thousand, about 80,000 a person? 80,000 a person. We're getting the contributions, the 12% from them. We're not getting that anymore. Chief Weathers doesn't pay into the pension. I mean, we can go on down the list, you know? It's like there's, it's a pretty good-sized number, you know, and you extrapolate that over, what, however many years. I mean, it runs itself up. They're not paying in because they already have paid in. Let's think about it. I mean, those nine people were gonna be retired out anyway, so they were gonna be drawing the pension anyway. And if we weren't, if we were holding those nine spots and not back-filling them, then yeah, then it would be a negative effect because we wouldn't be, but we're still trying to fill all those spots anyway. So if those nine people aren't here, we still have the same vacancies we've got. So that doesn't in any way adversely affect the pension. If we were holding those spots to not hire new people, to keep these people on, then yeah, that would be a bad, that'd be bad business, but that's not what's happening. And they were gonna retire anyway. If I could ask a question, do you know that you've asked the R's and you've asked the clerks that are former cops, was their decision impacted by the ability to work in a clerk spot or an R spot as opposed to? Clerk spot's not, it's a little bit different. The only reason I can say that about the officer R's is because none of them retired to do it. They were already retired when they came back to do it. So they had already retired and moved on. You conducted the research to say- No, no, no, no. It was not gonna change a member's behavior. No, what I'm saying is the nine that are our current ones had already retired and moved on. So I can say definitively, they were gonna retire regardless because we didn't have the program. Because they didn't- So the ones that came back, they just came back because they came back, but they didn't retire to do it. Now the clerks, and that you're probably right. I guarantee there's quite a few people that found a second job that they could go do, but they're not being the police. I mean, they're just taking reports over the phone. Basically, it's a civilian job. And regardless, that's how the system is set up to work. Those are years of service. They paid it, and now they're pulling out. That is the pension system. But if I had the option to retire tomorrow and then come back out and still get to come run us all and drag hoes for topped out firemen pay, and I can have an annuity, I can have my insurance, and I can come back to work and do what I like doing, and make topped out firemen pay, that seems like a pretty good- None of those clerks do that. That's not what they make. I mean, they're just answering phones and making like $19 an hour or something. I mean, they're just like regular civilian city employees. It's just those nine that we're talking about that have done that, that are on the topped out pay, and they're not putting into the pension. But again, they were retired. I mean, they're going to be retired anyway. That's why it's such a niche, because we have how many hundreds of retired officers? I don't know how many would be eligible, but we only have 10 dudes that came back, or nine that came back and actually did it, because we live in a world that you do your 20 or your 25, you come out the other side used up, and you don't want to do a second more all the time. There's a reason why we're both represented here. We live in different worlds, right? I don't, even now, after however many years this has been on this board, two, three, whatever it is, I forget that the fire department's different, because my whole world for the past 12 years has been police, police, police. That's why you're here. That's the value of you being here, is because I don't understand. Just like the value of me being here is because sometimes you don't understand that we live in a different world. And it's just, that's a lot of times people don't want to stay. We can't get people to stay 20, much less come back and work more, because this isn't their favorite thing in the world to do. They can't wait to be out of here, because this job will chew you up and spit you out in a way that I don't know what the fire department does or not. I don't know. I don't live in your world, but I've got a feeling it don't. And that's just anecdotal. I gotta hope that once we, if we were ever to get back to fully staffed like we were, then we would do away with the officer office. Oh, yeah, that's a, that's a, that would. In which case, so I mean, so they're not holding a spot. Personally, I don't like it. Yeah, I don't like the program, so I mean. Nobody asked me. Yeah, I'm not arguing for it. That's as many consensus of police officers we talk to. I think there's nobody here that likes it, but the trouble is, if we didn't have it, we would now be 140 short. Yeah, and I'd rather pay them what they get paid to keep from losing the school. I like the drop because my argument is that when somebody hits it, they want to get that pension and a full salary. That's what gets us bleeding. I mean, we're bleeding to the schools. The school police is getting all our people because of that. And if we offered a way that you could start drawing your pension, or however the drop was going to be set up. Sure. So you could do that and continue to work here. By all means, I'd rather keep them here, which is what the officer program kind of does, but that's what it does, right? Get a pension and get a city check all at the same time. And don't have to pay your 12% And it sounds, exactly, that sounds great, but nobody's doing that. I mean, people aren't falling over themselves. You know, I've got over 26 years, so I could easily do that and start drawing double, but there's no way in hell. I don't want to do the officer program. Right. So, I mean, our people are not tripping over themselves to get into it. And it doesn't help matters that out of all of our 1300-ish retirees, that 48% are disabled, right? Which brings us back to a piece that we have an issue with, which are disabilities. And there's more than one way to skin that cat. You know, like it could be on an administrative level or it could be here, which is, I think, what we ran the surveys and stuff, talking about scaling disability. So, I don't know, we can let this go, but that's where points of contention happen. I can tell you. I mean, and I know that we do come from two different worlds, but when we come in this room or in the board, down there in the chambers or whatever, it is 100% to protect that pension, you know? And if that looks like, hey, these people are costing the pension money, then that's why we're gonna have it. But they're not, is the thing. They're not. I would disagree that there's some way that they're charging, they're costing money. We can talk later. We can, but they are, I mean, it's, you know. They are. Okay, anyway, moving on. We'll agree to disagree. So, with that aside. That aside. Because, yeah, I mean, I saw that in the PowerPoint presentation that the fire department was willing. I didn't know where that had come from. I wasn't here. So, I'm definitely not trying to put anything in y'all's mouths by no means, so. Because I had no idea. So, and that's the reason I'm asking to start out what happened with this so I can understand why nothing moved forward. And maybe it's just, maybe there's something more to it that I didn't see that y'all decided it was not a good financial move to even look at implementing any of this. And if that's the case, by all means, we can shut down and move on to something else. But if not, I would like, I mean, if the membership is interested in this, both sides of it, I'd be interested to know what the fire department specifically wants. If they're interested in one of these options, even if it's feasible, why not? Why not do it? For what option are you talking about? Well, not these old ones. Well, in any of them. I mean, and it could look like anything, but figuring out what the cost is gonna be to go back to the 20. I don't think it's gonna be a good recruiting tool anyways. I never did, because the majority of our people don't even know that they're on a pension when they get here so I don't think that's what they got hired on, or that's what they came here for, the majority. But I think having a 20 or the 2.5% multiplier, that's what I would prefer, but it's not gonna affect me either, so. But looking at, what do the members want? The guys that are still working. And then, of course, thinking about the COLAs for the guys that have retired, because that takes care of everybody at some point. And I think that's a value to at least look at what is a feasible way to maybe make the COLAs better. And I know I keep hearing about this 13th check. I don't even understand what that is or how it's proposed, or if that's an option on the COLAs side of it. Something that, the state brought it up originally a year or two ago. But after doing some more investigating about it, I think the 13th check would be, it's not a good idea because it's gonna really do some tax issues with the retirees, my understanding, my CPA says. Okay. It'd be like a TIF, so instead of taxing it at 15%, I'm gonna have to tax it at, you know. Oh, like a capital gains? Yeah. Yeah, the idea of a 13th check is basically you get another check. Yeah. At some point during the year. Yeah, well, and that's what I assumed it was, but why? That was, we wanted a timeline, right? Because it's kind of like kids, right? Like, I'm gonna give you a piece of candy, and then five minutes later, you're gonna come ask me for a piece of candy. So we wanted something in writing that said, you know, it's every two years, three years, whatever it was, so. But that was intended to offset the COLA, correct? Mm-hmm. Okay. Greg. Yes, sir. I'm the one that brought this up twice. I stole it from the state, it's not my idea. I thought the 13th check would be, A, we can tell you exactly how much a 13th check was gonna cost, and B, it would be more palatable to the Irving County government, because as you said, cost of living adjustments are extremely expensive. With that said, it was put in subcommittee twice, and nothing has happened in two years, so. But it goes back. Do you still think it's a good idea? Because it sounds like. As compared to the current COLA? Yeah. Yes. Yeah, compared to zero, yeah. However, with that said, with a 13th check, it would be, what, a 12 1⁄4, 12 1⁄2 percent? You're not gonna get that every year. It's gonna be a several year range of time if a 13th check is given. Never looked at the tax implications. Don't care. I'm trying to do something for the retirees that are losing money every single month. That's all I got. Yeah, they're just expensive. You know, we spend seven and a half million dollars every month in payroll going out to retirees, so a 13th check is seven and a half million dollars this year. But it's not compounding either. Correct. So that's the. Well, that is the beauty in it. It comes to, what, 8.7 percent, 8.3 percent? Yeah, I think if we did some envelope math, if you did it like every, what was it, two years? Three years. It came out to like an 8.8 percent COLA. Greg, I'll kind of summarize kind of what your question is, and the people that have been on this committee for a while just can jump in if I'm incorrect. But I think what, they ran these scenarios to kind of get a ballpark of where it was, what it looked like. I think the issue is the unfunded liability, which is what the city has an issue with. And in that case, maybe questioning what our numbers even look like, maybe not trusting the actuary in general, and not paying off that unfunded liability over some time. And I think it was just a lot. There's a lot that needs to happen in order for all of those pieces to play a role. And I think that's kind of why it's like there's this battle of the unfunded liability, how much is this gonna cost, is it really not hurting the unfunded liability, whatever. Like there are all these different scenarios of is it really not hurting? If we don't trust the numbers, could it not be? Could it be? Are we, just a lot of that. And there's no one willing to move on kind of those scenarios. I mean, it's- Some of it was, like, it's the disability. Like me, personally, I have problems changing the disability because I've seen some of those people that are like 2 or 3 percent, the smaller amounts, that really need it, right? Like they can't work for whatever reason. So that's my hangup is I agree that the majority, there are a lot of people, I don't wanna say a lot, there are people that abuse the system and get a disability, right? But some of those people really need that even though they're a small percentage. And that's the people I don't wanna hurt. Oh yeah, no, I agree with that. So I guess I'll ask Aaron then from the city side. So if, and that makes sense, you don't trust the numbers that, because if I'm looking at these correctly, some of them don't impact the funded liability, very, very little. And if you don't believe them, well then that would make an obvious reason why you wouldn't wanna go to it. Because definitely we don't wanna enact something that then turns out the actuarial is wrong and it's devastating and we can't undo it at that point. What would make you more comfortable from the city finance standpoint in the actuarials? Being trusted. I think we've struggled the last few years with what we've been presented in a number of different things we've asked them to look at. One of those was the ghost time calculation. Yeah. And how that came back. It came back as this year's cost of purchase is quite a bit less than what things have been costing. Gut check wise, that doesn't make any sense to anyone sitting at the table. We went through a number of conversations, at least three that I can recall, where we sat down with them and asked, please explain this, please go over this. We don't like, just the general, how is this possible in the economy? The gut check of it all does not make sense to us. Can you get us there? And I don't feel that anybody on the committee really felt confident in that. That was one scenario we looked at. When we looked at a couple of these scenarios, some of them also came back kind of gut check that that just doesn't necessarily make sense. I have gone back and looked at the calculations, which we've had the same actuary since 2013, just to be clear. I've gone back and looked at their projections of where we thought we would be at this, excuse me, at this point versus where we are today. We are $120 million higher in our unfunded liability than where we even started. With higher assumed rate of returns, better outcomes than we've expected, more contributions from the members, more contributions from the employer, everything firing on all cylinders, better than anything we could have hoped for. And we're still nowhere near where we should be at this point. Now, I understand things change. We could not have projected races. We couldn't project mortality. We couldn't project all these things. There's a lot of mechanisms. And the last time Todd came in, he said, you know, it's like you've been paying interest on a house and now you're gonna work toward paying the principal. Except the principal on our house has gone up tremendously. So usually when you buy a house, your principal doesn't go up in the meantime, even if you're just paying off the interest. So the general concepts that we're being presented with don't necessarily make sense, which makes some of this not feel as warm and fuzzy as I would like to feel in these conversations. Now, that being said, I'm going to sit in this seat, probably the least amount of time of anybody. And this should be a relatively easy conversation for me. The city's perspective should be, pay as little as possible, move forward. That is not my perspective because my parents live off of this fund. And my sister and brother-in-law will also live off of this fund. So I have a vested interest in its success. That being said, it boils down to inputs and outputs for me. If you continue to add to the ocean, you're never going to be able to get the unfunded liability paid off. So that makes a lot of these decisions relatively simple in my mind. Because our ultimate responsibility is to provide for the KRS rules that we've been set forward. I didn't make the rules. I wasn't around. I was a child, quite frankly, when all of this went into place. But I inherited it, and I'm going to do the best I can with it while I'm here. We made some tough decisions. And since the 2022 experience study, we are kicking in, we, the city, me as a representative of the city, is contributing an additional $17 million a year into this fund. That is not easy, considering we're not adding that much in revenue every year. That's a commitment. And that's a commitment that wasn't made haphazardly. That was a prioritized commitment. We're going to continue to work on that. But can't keep adding to the ocean indefinitely. So we need to figure out, do we trust the information that we're being given? Are we willing to continue to make changes that are going to add to the ocean, in my opinion? And I dare not speak for anyone else because I want to make sure that my comments are only for me, myself. But I would think it would terrify anybody in police that people could leave five years earlier. If you were looking at the vacancies that you all have, and you had the choice to leave five years earlier, what kind of operational deficiency you would be potentially subjecting the force to? I live here. I've got a vested interest in success and the safety of the police department, whether that's recruitment, retention, whatever that happens to be. But those are the key factors in consideration that I would be thinking about when looking at all of this. I can just speak for myself. I can't speak for the mayor. I can't speak for anybody else as the city. It's just a math equation to me. But those are my thoughts. I appreciate it. Mayor, when you say the city is contributing $17 million additional dollars per year, are you saying that's in addition to what you're required to pay or what the increase is requiring? That's what it's been. That's how much we have added since we dropped the rate of return assumption down to 7 percent. So from 22 to now. So that's what you're required to pay, not an additional $17 million. It's $17 more than it was in 22. Right. What he's asking, though, is the amount that you have to pay, are you adding on top of that to pay the principal? That's his question, though. We set the rate every single year as a board. No, no, no. It was 36.2 percent. We're at 50-something percent now. And that's what we're paying, is that? Yes, that's what we're paying. I think what he was asking was in addition to that rate. No, no, no. I get that. Yeah, I get that. Yeah. Yeah, I think he was just asking. Yeah. Is it over about that? Yeah, because I mean, that'd be great if we could throw that at the principal and knock it down. Last time we met, we talked about whether or not us being 130 hours short was affecting that, and we agreed that it was. Do you have any idea to what extent? I don't think it's nearly as much as you would think it is. Oh, yeah, I have no idea. Because we have compensated with a number of additional positions over in FIRE. FIRE, 30, correct? Mm, maybe. I'm not sure. And the additional salaries have also compensated over the last several years. And I get what you're saying about getting people out five years earlier, but at the same time, I'm kind of in a position, too, that if we can financially do it, and our people want to go at 20 instead of 25, I think spending 20 years looking at some of this stuff and seeing some of this crap, if they want to get out the door, I'd like to let them get out. If it doesn't, and again, I agree 100%. The number one is the fund. Make sure that it's healthy. And that's why I say, you know, I would like the option, though, to at least take a look at these and see if it's something palatable. And then when it comes back, if we don't trust it or we don't like it, nothing says we have to do it. Or if it's negative, there's no loss. But if the membership, if that's what they're wanting, and it's something that is survivable and not going to be a negative impact, why would we not? So that's kind of where I am. Because when I looked at the numbers, like I said, and I don't know a lot of this history, so yeah, I mean, that is scary to take it on and say, yeah, you know what, you keep giving us bad numbers. And I know a lot of this stuff is, I hate to use the word guessing, but a lot of it is. And we don't know what the mortality. The National Air will tell you they're guessing. Yeah, I mean, we all know that. And they will also tell you that they're going to be wrong. Yeah. It just depends how wrong and which side. Yeah. I've been kind of quiet here. But, you know, my thoughts on this really is, you know, I want to help the employees as much as we can. But, you know, the retirees, you know, when you're young, you can do things. When you get old, you can't do things. And that's what this pension was done. I mean, and you're going to get tired of me hearing this, but half this pension was underfunded, okay, for years and years. That hurt us right there. The 50%, the city put themselves with that goalpost, you know, the 30-year mortgage, basically. And, you know, I think it sounded good at the beginning, but it sure isn't at this time. You know, what I would like to see, you know, I live in the Fed County. I'm a Fed County advocate. You know, I understand, you know, I want to try to help the city, but I'm also getting phone calls from little people that are under the 40,000, you know, well, do I buy food or do I buy medicine or, you know, or whatever, you know. And, you know, and every month, they're going further and further behind. So, you know, and the other thing is, is that, you know, we, in the early 80s, increased our contribution rate to prepay our COLAs. And you guys are paying 12%, and Todd Green said he doesn't know another, you know, city or, you know, pension system that pays that much. So if, you know, we're paying that much in there, hey, you know, we should have a little better, maybe enhanced pension than like the state, which is, you know, like 20% funded, and because they caused it, because they underfunded for a year, you know, and they're still underfunding it, you know, and all that, you know. So, you know, we're paying, you guys are paying, and even I and Rock, when we were here, paid a lot of extra money to prepay our COLAs. Now, that being, you know, saying that, I totally agree with Aaron when it comes with these calculations that we're getting from Todd, because, you know, especially like on buying time, I mean, it just does not make sense that your salaries have gone up significantly. I mean, yes, you know, mortality has gone up a little, and it just keeps, it's costing, you know, less to buy the same amount of time than when I was here, and I mean, we're talking not just a little, we're talking a substantial amount, and I agree that I am not Todd Green, and, you know, I'm, you know, a mathematical whiz, but common sense just tells me that just don't oughtn't, you know? It just don't sound right. Now, we have had discussion about possibly hiring a different actuary to see if there is a different... you know, result in a lot of this. But, you know, my position is going to be, you know, I want to take care of the retirees. And when you take care of the retirees, you're taking care of everybody that's in this pension system. Because at some point, you're going to retire. And you know, the pension system, you know, if you look at the definition of it is, Brock, whatever it is, you know, it's supposed to be taking care of the people that have worked here, okay? And we're not really doing that now. We were, but we're not. And, you know, I mean, I can't control inflation. And there's no doubt, there's going to be times, you know, it's going to be, there's no way the pension can handle it. I mean, back when, in the 80s, when I bought my first house, I was paying 18% interest on my house. You know? You know, I think it's twofold. We can maybe enhance these ideas that, you know, we're discussing. But we need to work with the city. And maybe we need to find out if we need to move the goalposts. We need to move, or maybe do away with the goalposts altogether to lower the, you know, what they're doing. 50% is a lot of money. I mean, technically, they're paying one and a half times your salary every year. And, you know, but yes, some of it probably was caused by previous administrations way down the road. And it's come back to bite us in the rear end here now. But. So what do you, what's your suggestion then? Because it was my understanding, that's the reason you were getting all this from the fire department and everybody. That's the whole reason I was pushing forward. What I would like to see is whatever ideas you all decide you want to do. You know, whether it be the two and a half, if you want to change the disabilities, that, you know, that doesn't affect me. Because I'm gone. I'm retired. The only thing on here that really affects me is the cost of living. Which, you know, I firmly believe we got really screwed by the previous administration. And, you know, because we weren't even asked. The pension board was not even included in this. It was just done. You know. And if, you know, if we had probably looked into it a little bit further, it may not have looked as good then as it's right now. But we're stuck with this mess. So, you know, there's nothing wrong, I think, if this committee wants to narrow it down to what we want to look at, send it to an actuary. And it doesn't have to be Todd, possibly. We'll have to. But we're on a contract. Well, no. He has all of the data. You can't go and pick out an actuary and say, here, do an actuary. Well, what would happen if we fired him? Because we're not looking. You know, I'm not real happy with Todd. I will be blunt. You will have to go through an RFP. You will have to hire somebody. Oh, yeah. I know. That person will have to be a year or two years to get all of the data and understand this pension system before you could get something that you may not even like. But, I mean, you can't go and pick somebody, some actuary, and do a cost analysis on our fund. Just doesn't work that way. Erin, is that something that finance can come up with? I don't know how hard the process is, but it will come up with any of those kinds of numbers. No, no, no. It has to be done by an actuary. Well, I just meant, regardless. Let's, you know, pass it. Send it to him. You know, he'll get it back to us in a couple of months or whatever. He's, this time of year, he's doing actuaries. So, I will say that you may not get it back quicker than you think. Well, and that's fine. But, we're not making any changes until next year. You're right. We're looking at 2027. But, we can't send him 20 different scenarios. Right. That's what I'm saying. We need to narrow it down to what we want to do, and, you know, and then, you know, we'll go to the, I'll go to the board and ask him for, you know, for the money to do it. We've done that before. I just got the city's actuary. When are they coming? Do you know when they're? They will, they are not scheduled until we get the actuary back. I'm hoping to get it back the first, in fact, since we got the city's back, which, of course, the city's is so easy. I'm anticipating to get it in November. He did ask me if we had talked anything about smoothing or moving the goalpost because he thinks that he still feels strongly that we need to, we need to look at those options. So, I should get the actuary hopefully in November. I think last year he came in January, honestly, is my guess. But, he strongly still is pushing that we need to either initiate smoothing, move the goalpost, both of them, one of them, something to get the unfunded liability to a more manageable dollar amount and also possibly, I mean, we've talked about where we lowered the, we lowered to seven percent, but our fund is hitting seven and a half. That was a big hit for the city, you know, looking at possibly moving that back up to seven and a half. I mean, that's, that's an option. I mean, we made that change during the experience study in 22. Thank you. Yeah, they came and told us this guy was getting ready to fall. Yeah, which of course, yeah, I mean, honestly, it could have very well fallen, but lucky enough, it didn't. So, you know, moving it back to seven and a half might help a lot. Oh, it's going to help. There's no advance. Yeah, so, I mean, there's going to do right to help the city and also be able to help fund some of the COLAs, you know. Absolutely. I'm willing to, you know, I'm willing to do it, but I'm, you know, I'm willing to do that, but personally. We have to, this whole group has to be realistic. Right. And that the main goal is to have this fund available in here for 50, 100 years down the road. Right. Greenfield, I won't be here. I will. Good for you. The mayor came to me the other day and asked me if there was a turn limits. When you say that he said that Todd said to get the unfunded liability to a more manageable number, is that, is he talking about the total amount or is he talking more about in the last five years? Well, you've got 18 years to pay this off, I think, or maybe the last actuary was 18 years. Yep. Right. We're getting, we're inching closer and closer to where the city is going to have their unfunded liability, their percentage is going to go extremely high. 10 percent of the city's budget is already going. Yeah, for us to meet that goal and that's ridiculous. So he is saying that their projection is fall and we need to reevaluate? Their projection is a time on one date. Sure. So, yes, and it is a moving target. They do their estimate as of June 30th of whatever year. And it depends on what? And whatever happens during that year afterwards, you know, they can only guess that. Right. And when was the last one done? Is it done every year? We do actuaries every year. Every year. We do experience studies every five years. Right. And it's bad or wrong since last year? What do you mean? We haven't done an experience study since 22. So something significant has changed since 22, is what he's saying? Well, back then when he did in 2022, all things pointed to that we really needed to lower our expectation. Right. And I also think that was at the beginning of the year. So like that's when like the stock market really fell back. Yeah. We're coming off of 20 and 21. Yes. Which were? Yeah, during COVID. Do you have them as information? I do. I did not bring that. Shut up! This giant book of numbers? Oh, you've got no room to talk there. Just like remove any one of those and if what would seem like a very incremental nominal amount, like mortality rate, like you could drop that thing by a couple of years and all of a sudden the unfunded liability changes. We moved $118 million by moving it down to the 7%. Overnight, we added $118 million to the unfunded liability. Which had to be funded over the remaining period. Correct. So keep in mind, 52% sounds like a lot, but I want to go back to this point that we're just not connecting on. It's being expressed as a percent of payroll, but we use level dollar amortization. The dollars are the dollars. So the fewer people you have on payroll, whether it's fire, police, or anybody else, the higher the percentage has to be to get 50 million, 100 million, whatever the million is for that year in. So it is fundamentally false to say that not having people on the payroll doesn't affect the plan. That's just how pensions work. Period. The reality is the city of Weissman has to write a check, but rather than writing a check, they reverse engineer it. Almost all pension systems do it this way, as a percent of payroll, based on what the people earn. And that's essentially an accounting term, but it's X amount of dollars every year. And then when the window starts to close, it's still that many dollars, but you only can divide it by 18 or 17 or 16 or 15. And that's the point of Mr. Green's concern. And that's where the world has shifted. We went from completely open periods where we were never going to close the town to this idea of being completely fixed. It's kind of like the porch is too high or too low. We're trying to find an in-betweens line. And also, if I remember correctly, and maybe it's just I don't remember, but it's always like, in the next couple of years, it's going to be an increase. And then after three years, you're going to start seeing the decrease. And we never see that decrease. So that's one of the big problems. If we can loop all this, this is great. I'm going to keep going here. Back to a little historian question. If we look at this, and then we think about what would help on the city's side to breathe a little bit. I would say Ms. Hensley's side, but she claims she's not going to be here that much time. I don't blame her. Too many meetings like this. Whatever can cause them to have a little bit more room to breathe would maybe look like the smoothing or the layering, the things like that, those instruments that can be used in order to say, hey, we don't have to box this thing in like we've done. And it's not kicking the can down the road further. It's just making it a more manageable thing that everybody can just relax on, right? Because right now, it seems like a big Phillips wile. Would you not agree? I mean, almost impossible. That is what it looks like to me. And if we would ask somebody to see what that would cost, again, Mr. Green, an actuary, what it costs to do something like that, it'd be handy if that didn't get turned into like, you know, that's like the big bad wolf showed up, gave our money away to the city. So keep that in mind. The return on market value assets the year before our experience study was negative 13.8. So that was what we had going into that experience study. So that was one of their. That was their third bullet point for us and their comments regarding our valuation. So they then noted that our investment loss will be recognized over the next four years. 11.4 million loss in 2023, 8.7 loss in 24, 6.1 in 25 and 40.5 million loss. 26. What was, I forget, what was John's last crystal ball about the economy? What do you mean what our return was? No, what are they projecting the economy is going to be doing? It's right now, the projection is it's going to be going up. Now, whether it's going to go up, it's still going, it's just going to go up. I don't know if it's going to be like what it's doing. Right now, the market is screaming nuts. It's at 1% today. Yeah. For us, it's an invest, it's good. But there's a lot of people that did do that, a lot of retirees. So get more to cut into the chase. We've got the history and I like how you're helping this along. We're outlining what all we've seen and I think that's probably what we actually needed. That I didn't realize that. Do you all have things that you would want to propose that be calculated? I mean, do you have things, I mean, you guys have done, it sounds like probably a little more surveying than we have. Well. So I'm trying to think of what exactly was. You know, we can, you can put in a whole bunch of different things and see what it's going to cost. And it may not be feasible, you know, or whatever. Well, but like Susan said, we don't want to send, you know, a million scenarios. We can only send a couple. No, I mean, we're only talking about, we're talking about the disability. We're talking about 20 in, 20 out. The two and a quarter and the COLA. Only four things. But we've got other ones on there too, like smoothing and layering. If we want to send that CEO. Well, I agree. The fifth thing is, we need to talk to, what would be the best way of lowering what the city is paying? I mean, I'm not too sure that, you know, we shouldn't get, you know, get away from the goalpost. You know, get, you know, do away with that and just do it accurate each year. I'm going to tell you, like, I truly like the having a goalpost. And nothing against, you know, the current administration, but I don't know what the next administration is going to be like, right? Like, you know, it might turn out to be an administration like we've had in the past. I like having that final date as a goalpost. But I mean, you can go, instead of 18 years, you can go back to 25 or 30. Yeah, I don't have a problem moving the goalpost, but I agree, I want a goalpost. But yeah, but I like the goalpost. Yes, I want a goalpost. I agree completely. Well, the thing that scares me about the goalpost is, is, you know, let's see, we get to year 28 or whatever, and you have the, we lose 13% and everything, and the city's got to pay it up. You know, and, you know, it may end up being, you know, they may have to owe $200 million, you know, at last time. Well, you can implement both. You can actually move the goalpost and do the smoothing. You can do both. Yeah, you can do both. I'm not against it. I just want to see what it looks like. Yeah. You know, I need, you know, I would like to get him, you know. I mean, he did a whole presentation. Try to explain it to me, to us, you know, what is the best route. But sometimes, like, it doesn't, just moving the goalpost isn't going to reduce it like we think, right? Like, say we add another, what do we got, 18 years? So, if we add another 18 years, like, it doesn't mean we're cutting payments in half, right? Like, you still have compounding on top of that. Right. So. Absolutely. But it got to help them. I mean, and I think he did a presentation on smoothing and. Yeah, we had a video on it. Yeah. Because that was when, that was in June. It was recently. Yeah, it was this year, I think. It was this year, for sure. So, I mean. I think it was June, because that's when we first started talking about smoothing later. But, I mean, we keep talking in circles here. So, I mean, we keep talking about the same subject. Subjects. But we need to. If I can, that's what happens at every one of them. I was going to say, this is what we've been doing for the last three years. I know. We're just bringing Greg up to speed. Yeah. So, we do things. This is how we do it. We need. How do you feel like you're going to change, or what are you bringing to the table? What do you want to look at? Not just talk about, oh, we need to look at COLAs. We need to know how you want to look at COLA. What do you want? A lot of these things have already been done. Like we're talking about. We probably need to update them, because it was in 23. Yeah, the last one was in 23. Yeah, so things have changed a little bit. But, like, for CSRS retirements, are you looking at 20 years and leaving it two and a quarter? And then you need to think about age. You're going to throw the age in there. So, we need, like, what do you want to look at, in a sense? As opposed to just saying. That's what we need to do, is get it down to what we want to look at. And keep it, you know, if you can find the rules. I mean, bring ideas to the table that are detailed. Right, and that is where I was wanting to get from them, as well. Because I don't want to speak just for the police side of, hey, this is what they want. Because we want everybody, you know, what do you all value most? The 20 or the two and a half. Depends on the number. Or the combination of the two. Or that, yeah. I mean, COLAs are always nice. Like, I would love to have a COLA. I'd love to be able to give COLAs. Like, I'm just telling you, COLAs are expensive. There's never been a solution. People walk in this room, and like, we need COLAs. And that's where it stops. There's no solutions. There's no, like, research shown. Like, what is the, what's a normal COLA that a pension system has? Well, if you look at the average, it's about 3.3%. Wow, really? That's the average pension COLA? No, the COLA, yeah. For other pension systems? For what? This system? Nobody here gets COLA. For what? Who's getting? No, no, no. I mean, no. What the average, what we're getting now? No, no, no. Like, other pension systems. What are other pension systems giving? Well, we used to be tied to the, basically, we tied ourselves to the CPI, which I like doing anyway. And the CPI is, over the last, I forgot, 20, 25 years, it's like 3.3 or something like that. Okay, that's what CPI is. What are other pensions giving as COLAs? The state is giving zero. They haven't given a pension in 11 years, I mean, of COLA. What about other, do you have any other examples besides that? Not off the top of my head, I can't. Because I'm just, I'm curious what other pension systems do. Well, you know. And like, I agree, we're separate and we need to do what's best for our members, but I'm, you know, if they're given a 4% COLA, like, maybe we can call them up and say, how are you paying for this? Right? Yeah, because we can do that for 30 years and then we're insolvent too. Well, and like, no, we went to a conference and was talking to, was it Oklahoma that paid like, they paid like some ungodly percentage. Now, I won't tell you I was drinking, but I was like, oh my god, how do you do it? He goes, we can't. That's why we had to change it like two years later. So. Now, all that being said, like, in efforts to expedite this and not just have social hour, like, when we came here today, I think the expectation was that you guys had done a lot of legwork and that's very responsible because, you know, I feel like we need a little bit more on our end probably to really narrow it down to say confidently, hey, this is what guys want, right? But we knew you guys did a survey, you had a PowerPoint, Tommy's been talking to firemen, like, all of this stuff. I guess we were kind of in hopes that you all had a proposal and that we were going to hear it out and then say, well, that seems like it's doable, it doesn't. And then in that case, we could take back to our membership, like, hey, this is what, you know, the cops are a step ahead of us here in terms of surveying their membership. This is kind of what we want to look at. I think that's kind of what we're hoping for. But if you don't have that, then I think we need to start from ground zero and say, in some type of united way, say, we're going to survey everybody equally, you know, and see what it is that they want. But I don't know that that works out good either. I don't think it's a bad option because I think it includes everybody. And I know they, the PowerPoint, because you made, what were the options exactly? Do you remember? It's what we ran before. So it would be the 20-year, the decrease in disability, and then the increase in tolls. What is the risk of offering something that we really have no ability to deliver? No, no, no, not offering. Just saying, hey, are you interested? Because it kind of sounds like if you put it out in a survey that you have some ability to deliver it, that's at least how I would feel. If somebody asked me how I think, what I think, and I tell them, they should be able to give it to me, right? Well, and that was some of the confusion, because I got a lot of phone calls, and I had to clarify with people, hang on, what they're asking is, if we were to look at it, what would you prefer us to look at? Because we can look at a series of things, and none of them may be feasible, and we can't do it. That's just the reality of it. We just got to communicate with them. We just got to communicate with them. For those of you who belong to the National Coalition of Public Employee Retirement Systems, you can look at this information, and it says the average COLA was 2.2%, slightly higher than the 2.3% the year before. This information is out here. People got to take the effort to educate themselves. I know I'm not on the board, and I saw I offered limited input for a lot of these things, but the information is out there. We're spinning our wheels continuously. Now, with the information that's out there, if it ends up being not feasible, that's a different story, but the information is out there, guys. It took me 10 seconds to figure that out. Our union pays for that. We have the access to it. I hope you guys do as well. So what are some suggestions, then? What do you all think? So are you wanting something today to send to Todd, or what are you wanting? No, not necessarily. No, not necessarily, I mean, because we don't know what you're all side specifically, you know, what you all value most. I mean, because if fire department valued solely the multiplier over the years significantly, then obviously we wouldn't want to, we wouldn't know that until we ask. For us, it's a close wash about going back to a 20 and keeping the same multiplier versus, you know, staying at 25 but with an increased multiplier to two and a half. You know, another option that we haven't talked to the membership about is maybe a combination of those two, you know, give people the chance to retire at 20 with a smaller, the 2.25, but at 25, maybe go to two and a half. You know, it's all retroactive to two and a half. So if you stick around the 25, then you... Or the last five years turned into two and a half, or whatever. Yeah, something. Two and a half, some hybrid model, right? And again, to echo Ms. Hensley's point, you know, any chance that somebody could leave early is probably kind of scary. So keeping that minimum age of 50 helps combat that in the hopes that some of this eligibility to retire early would combat some of the disabilities as well. So... Yeah, what did you all have as your retirement age? I think we... Oh yeah, we left it at basically 25 and 50, because that's the scenario. I think we ran 47. There's a couple different scenarios. 50 and 45 is the two scenarios, right? Just that we ran back in 23. And what were the COLA spans we ran? The what? What were the COLA spans? I know one time we did a 13th check concept, another time we did... The COLAs we did... Tied to the CPA with a minimum 1% fraction of 5%. Who did that? That's their... That's your report. You're talking about this one that was done a couple years ago. Oh, so that's what we ran. No, sir. We never once. That's why I was a little confused when you said you ran the things that this bench reported on that earlier, because that's not accurate. No, we did the... We increased everybody by a half a percent of one of the proposals. Second proposal was to increase the bottom to 50,000. Take the tiers up. Take the tiers up. Third proposal was giving... Was doing the tiers going up 50,000, and it was two and a half, two, and one and a half. So we ran three different proposals, is what we sent to the actuary, and 23. And then if I recall, each individual piece comes back separate, but then they need to be decided upon in an area, because- Correct. They go back and say, well, this might change some of the behavior this way. So when you blend them- Yes, we never blended any of them. Yes. You have to go back and pick each scenario in each area, and then we could do a blended. But we couldn't get to that point, so there was no blended. What does the committee want to do? What's the proposal? There's no proposal. That's what I'm saying. I would like to request that regardless of what scenarios we look at, when Todd is in town, that we have a half day with him set aside to sit down and look at all of this information. I'd like to go back in history. I'd like to look at the projections. I'd like to look at the different scenarios that he's already presented us. And really, for anybody else other than myself that would like to attend, or if it's just me, that's fine. I would like to have a better understanding of what he presents us, how they come to these calculations. Maybe if we sit down across the table and go over it enough. And if you could send me specific questions, that way he's prepared, because he will come in doing the presentation for the current actuary. And if we want to meet afterwards, I need for him to be prepared. So I need questions of what you will be wanting, or anybody would want to discuss, that way he could be prepared. I was looking at 24, for example. Our rate of return is better than we expected. There's no major changes in mortality. We're about even on input and output as far as members. And yet, where we were projected to be as far as contribution, we were projected to be at 52. And his note noted that we should have gone to 53 and a half. What made the difference? What would have made the difference? So those are the kind of questions I would be seeking to understand. OK. If you could just send me those, then I can forward them to him. Yeah. So are you wanting? I'm sitting here. Yeah, I'm sitting here contemplating what, because I'm trying to think of what the best, if we have enough information to go ahead and at least come up with a couple ideas of what we would want to send and see if it's something that. So for instance, if we did a 20, if we asked them to run, what happens if we go to the 20 and leave it at two and a quarter? Leave it at 25 but run it at two and a half? I mean, we'd have to decide what we want to do on the ages. I mean, if you're going to go at 20 but leave it at 50 years old, that's kind of a high age, too. Can I propose something? Sure. Yeah, we're hiring 40 months. If us two and you two get together at some point, we come up with a unified plan, we come back with a meeting. And that way, we don't have this big discussion. We can loop Tommy and Rock in. We start talking about COLAs or 13th check or however that goes. But that way. Yeah, because we don't even know what it is. That way, we'll be all on the same page. Because part of this problem is this committee has been divided. And we don't want to take a proposal to the board when the committee is divided that potentially has to go out to the unions for a vote. Because we need the support of the unions if we're going to make big changes like this. So that means we have to present it to the membership, theoretically, right? Or potentially. We don't have to, I agree. But. I thought I was missing something. We don't have to, but it's the nice thing to do, right? It was the appropriate thing to do. So there, thank you. It's a better word. But that's been a big problem with this committee is we cannot come to a consensus on something of this magnitude. The feeling is it needs to be a unanimous decision. That way, we're a united front when we present it. Yeah, because nobody's bringing ideas to the table. They're just, we're just talking in circles in regards to all the same subjects. But in my mind, an idea that we could have is we could get together and then we can come together as a subcommittee and then go to the board for a vote with our ideas. And then when Todd leaves, we tell him exactly what we want then. That's when he can start running his numbers. Because unless we run it today and even probably still then, we wouldn't get numbers when he's here in January. No, not, no. So. If that or not. Yeah. Okay. In, in a consensus, again, I've referenced Hurold's survey. Did you get, like, did you have a lot of feedback on that, like, legitimately? Because I know, like, you can, you put it out there to whatever your membership, right, and you get 40% of the people who actually respond, right? Did you, what do you guys come up with? I think there were like 238 people that, that's all that responded. It was like 90 plus percent that was in support. But then again, I mean, who's going to say no? Right. In support of what? Exactly. And that was my problem is the fact that I don't know what they were in support of. And maybe one of the things we come up with is, you know, some different surveys that we can send out to both police and fire to kind of, you know, gauge their level of interest or tolerance of change. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I'm completely on board with that. Because I, like I said, I didn't have any background. Because if this was shot down for a specific reason, then we can run it all over again, get the same results again, and then shoot it all down all over again. So, exactly. And I don't want to do that if there was some other reason why this never moved forward to begin with. Nobody pulled the trigger and it wasn't, it was very divided in the level of support. And I get that. I mean, who wants to make a change when, you know, the fear of the unfunded liability. That is an option, right? Like, doing nothing is an option. Sure. I mean, but our job is to be fiduciarily responsible to the pension. Like, I've joked that, you know, we need to make sure that the pension is here 100 years from now. But we're hiring 18-year-olds, 20-year-olds. Them or their spouse could very likely live to 120 with medical advances. So. All right. All right. So. What else is? We're going to, you all are going to get together, come up with some ideas, and then you're going to. You don't like that? That's right, I don't like that. I'm just going to, I'm thinking, I don't know, I've got a lot of things that are being recorded, I shouldn't. Well, I think for the benefit of everybody in this room, that would be the best thing. And that probably, they would probably appreciate it. Well, a couple of things that I just can't bear to not say. Here we go. Having an unfunded liability does not make you a bad person. We've all had mortgages. Lots and lots and lots of police and fire or pension funds have a much higher percentage unfunded liability than we do. Second thing is the police and fire departments are not going out of business. There's going to be cops and firemen tomorrow and next month and next. They're going to be paying into this. So I'm not saying that we're not wise to look at this, but unfunded liability does not have to leave an, saying it does not have to leave an acidic taste in your mouth. The other thing, Trey mentioned a 48% disability percentage of our retirees. And that is likely a very accurate number. However, if you retire with time and convert it to disability, you're not hurting us. You're taking advantage of tax implications. So that number is maybe very accurate, but it's not necessarily reflective of damage to the pension fund. Done. Or reflective of core values either, but I might mention that. And I don't disagree with you that having an unfunded liability is not a dirty word. Except for the KRS. That's right. We didn't choose the KRS. You are correct. Absent, that is correct. It got chosen by a previous administration without our... Absent legislation that makes it horrendous. So, all right, if we're finding good common ground to get a foothold in, I think we can all get down with that with Rock's statement. Rock, way to rally everybody. But it's, I mean, yes, 100% funded is almost a pipe dream to some degree. I mean, at what point you close that in, right? And that's just... Well, it could be 100% today, and we have a 22, and then we're only 90% funded. You know, that's always going to be there. You know, what was our work? 2008. The 2008 was the worst year. I mean, we went down, what, 20, 22%, 23%, you know? And but we've made it back up and made money. I mean, we're not wasting $400 million. I brought all the things. Yeah. So, you know, it's... So, again, I'm glad that we're all on that, at least on that wavelength, you know? That there are things, and again, there are tools out there that can help the unfunded liability and help manage that. Again, give that breath of fresh air, right? And at that point, we can adjust them. So maybe that's where we need to get started. Okay. So you all want to get... My understanding is police and fire are going to get together, okay? And then at some point, I'm assuming you all will get with retirees. Me and Rock, is that correct, later? I do. Could we just do all six of us at once? Yeah, I could. I don't have a problem with it. If we all met. No, because... Well, that's not a quorum. That's not a quorum. Six in. It's easier to get more together. Can we get together, not in a subcommittee meeting? Is there a work group? Is there any prohibition against a number of us getting... Is it like a council meeting? Well, it's established subcommittee. I would recommend if a quorum of you get together and discuss a committee business, you need to do it as a meeting. Yeah. Yeah. And it has to be recorded. Well, I mean, you can get together, because we're... You're just the only two on the subcommittee. Because we're the only two on the subcommittee, so... Yeah. Two volunteers. Well, I mean, they're coming, too. They just don't know anything. They're voluntolds. Yeah. They're voluntolds. No, you've got one fire, one police, two commissioners, and me. Yeah. Rock's not on the subcommittee. Nor is Trey. There's only four people. Well... Oh, it's five. Five. There are five. You've got two commissioners, two active police, and a retiree, and an active fire. So we can't do a work session at some point? Okay. So we can't do a work session? Can't call? Something? I'm going to have to look into it. I'm not going to advise on that. I would recommend if a quorum of them is getting together, maybe just... What if we had a meeting for 30 days out and haven't come back? What did we call it? Probably a workshop. It was a workshop. A workshop. A workshop. Oh, yeah, it was a presentation. Yes. Okay. We're not talking about a presentation? We're talking a year and 14 months. Is there anything else you want to discuss? Well, you know, we've already... The election, definitely we want to do that. There are any... They're at the bottom. Yeah, I was previously approved. So both of those two have all been... These two have been approved. Have been moved forward. And I've got the... The one that's still pending is the health insurance. We would like to do this all at once. You start going down there and they don't like doing that. You know what I mean? We've done this before and I know how that works. I mean, that has been on the list for over a year. If you want, you can go ahead and write up, you know, the change in the... I also... So we can have it. That was what we have asked to have moved out. No, but we probably need to have it done so we can present it to the board. Or maybe... Benji's already been brought in, right? So if you'll do these two... Yeah. Just wanted Glynda's opinion. And that'll be behind you. You know, we won't have to worry about it again. I'm not arguing. By the way, I'm Microsoft. Oh, thanks. Right, and we'll probably do it all at one time. You know, to get ahead and just go ahead and get that behind you. So you might do it. It's up to you. I mean, you know. All right. But it's nice to ask. I mean, I can reach out to Benji. I have a good relationship with Benji. I mean, I can go and talk to him. I think Benji's already commented, gave his comments. It was just checking with Glynda to find out how she felt. If she had an opinion one way or the other on it, I think is where we are. Benji has already... What are we discussing? We're talking about the health insurance. Oh, okay. Being able to waive it and come back in at a later date. That'd be great for the retirees. Yeah, Benji's thing was people would come back when they're sick. Correct. Like when they're older and they're more prone to illness. When they come back over 65, they go on to the fully insured plane. So they're not a part of this. Well, that was his... Yeah, that was one of his issues. That was his only issue, wasn't it? I don't know. Okay, when do you all want to have another meeting? How long is this going to take, guys? I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. You know, what you want to do with availability is we can start emailing today and figure out... Are we wanting Todd to leave with what we're asking him to calculate? I'm asking you because that's... Yeah, I would like to. Yeah, absolutely. Well, here's the deal. You have to... This committee has to come up with the scenarios. Right. Then it has to go before the board. Tommy has to do a review and ask for us to spend money. So I'm saying, like, if Todd's going to be at the January meeting, then we can do that at the January meeting at the very latest. Like, that's our... Yeah, I mean, I would still have to send him the email. I think January would probably be too soon. You're going to be in Florida? Well, yeah, but I can fly back. I mean, you know, $50 down and $50 back and I'll charge it to the pension. Yeah. Take it out of your COLA. On with all that printer money? Yeah, take it out of it. It's like a printer in Parkerville. What I'm being paid to be here. I mean, I think we... The first... You all just need to get together and come up with... Yeah, you all need to get together and then, you know, let me know what you're all coming up with and then we'll set a meeting. Well, then we... And we also need COLA ideas. We just can't... What the problem is, is the three of us can't. Well, we can get together with Barack. We can talk about COLA. Here's the difference. We're going to be retirees. Well, we could... Yeah, I mean, if the four of us meet, at least talk about the service side of it. And then the two retirees can meet with either like one of us and... Or we can get Rock in the meeting to volunteer. Or that, yeah. At least, I mean, you all can throw in your side of the problems. We've kind of got an idea. We... Well, yeah, it's like the CPI tie. We tie it to the CPI and... There's not a... Okay, but... Okay, when you're linking it to the CPI, you need to be a little bit more detailed. Well, what CPI, what must CPI... What we, you know... I mean, I know what we did in the past. Right. Was we made a motion in June, set the COLA rate effective July 1st. Use the April COLA or use the April... It was whatever the last one was. It was always April. Which is April. Absolutely. April, all items unadjusted 12 months in for lease date was May 15th. So, I think there should be more than one option on the COLAs. I mean, I think that we need to look at a couple of... Don't give one and that's the only one we want, kind of thing. I think there should be a couple of options and you need to be detailed if you can link it to the CPI, how you're linking it to the CPI. How does Todd calculate COLA? Do you know how he calculates the cost of COLAs? No. I don't have an actual... I don't have an actuarial degree, so I'm not getting into that one. Well, you do a lot of weird stuff, so... I do do a lot of weird stuff, but... No need to calculate them now. Hang on, I might have it in here too. No need to calculate them now. One, one and a half, two. Right, that's it. That's all you need to know. I'm going to try it, yes. Oh, there it is. And when, you know, and also, when does it go into effect? Now, it's, you know, it's set one and a half. Two, or one, one and a half, and two. You go back to linking it to the CPI, and then what month are you going to give everybody a COLA? Yeah, okay. You're going to make some people mad. Well, we... We're going to make somebody mad every time. Details will be done, you know, but... I mean, there's details that we're going to have to give Todd on those things. We're going to have to be able to do that, so just... Don't just say link to the CPI one to five. I mean, it needs to be... Well, yeah, you... Well, obviously, you could do it, you know, probably the first, you know, like we used to do. I mean, I looked up how we used to do it, so I have... And that's what I was... When is the CPI done at the end of the year? Is there, like, a December CPI? Yeah, you won't get that until March. Oh, okay. There's one every month, sir. But it's always behind. Yeah, but... It's, like, two months behind. I was just thinking, like, if you just kept it in February, whatever CPI, that would... Yeah. I don't know. But I know previously, we did the raises in July. What it is, is that the CPI comes out on the 15th. Well, our pensions were meeting sometimes before, you know, and it usually was two months behind because they, you know... Yeah, so that's where that was. Okay, all right. So we're going to adjourn until we... Meet again. Until you all contact me, and we'll set up another meeting. Is that correct? Yep. And I'll email you guys, and we can figure out that. FYI, November is not a good month. No. Nor is December, nor is January. No, just November is really bad. Well, the problem is, is that, like, if you want to do something next legislative session, like, you've got to get numbers. It's not happening next year. I'm aware it's happening next year, but, you know, you've got to look at, like, three months to get numbers back from college. We're looking at 28 now. It's 5.7. Good one. Gary, we want to talk for a lot of people about the time, buying the time. Well, if he's going to come, we're going to talk to him in January. Yeah, I mean... I mean, it just doesn't... We're not having a lot of people buy ghost time anymore. It's because they aren't tired. Yeah, I mean, everybody's bought it. Right here. And once you're on the 25-year plan, you can't buy it. You've got to buy that little window. You have that window. Only in military. Yeah, that's one thing that can't come back. That's correct. Why does that have to change? That's a different actuary. Because it's a loser. It's a money loser. They're not buying that ghost time anymore. I thought that... Not according to the actuary. I thought that was a money loser when I wrote my check. Not according to the actuary. It's cost neutral. No, not a chance. Okay, all right. Anything else? Motion to adjourn? So moved. Second? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Second.