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VI UPDATE U.S. Virgin Islands Public Records TRANSCRIPT OF PUBLIC PROCEEDINGS Government of the Virgin Islands· Retirement System Board Meeting GERS Retirement System (Board of Trustees) recording published June 26, 2020 · 1.4 hours · gov Source recording https://youtu.be/nNteRm7ZxMo Status This is NOT the official transcript. 3 V.I.C. § 884 requires the agency itself to make a verbatim record of its proceedings and reduce it to a transcript within sixty days. This is a working transcript produced by machine from a recording of the proceeding, offered as a finding aid. Transcribed by VI Update, using OpenAI Whisper large-v3-turbo, run locally. Not reviewed by a person. Reliability Automatic transcription, UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording before relying on it. Speech recognition splits spoken digits and wraps figures mid-number, so a dollar amount, a vote count or a bill number can be wrong in a way that reads as correct. 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No permission is needed, and none is ours to grant or withhold. budget request from from from staff from management for the period april 20th to 9 30 20 from april to september 2020 um total operating budget of one million three hundred sixty six thousand total capital outlay of one million five hundred and three thousand for a grand total budget of two million eight hundred and sixty nine i so move mr boy yes i would recommend the motion should be it's a recommendation from the budget and audit committee not necessarily from staff since you're recommending it to the board okay um so i should rephrase the motion to to say what That the Budget and Audit Committee is recommending the approval of the 2020 Havenside Mall budget in the amount of $2,869,275, and that you could break it down if you wanted to. 0:00:00 Can I just say some move on to that? Yeah, that works. Second. yes trusty college yes trusty barry yes trusty cohen yes rusty liger yeah steve mcdonald option trustee smith excuse chairman calendar yes five yes one absent one excuse all right a 2020 fiscal year 2020 haven side mall budget has been approved item number two discussion and gis funding task force who wants to take you i'll step on this um the you know i wish him i wish him luck if he can find people to sit the board and come up with ideas we haven't thought of great unfortunately i i you know i i'm i'm not real hopeful for a successful and realistic proposal for much I I am with you on that very much with you on that one and me the size and the composition of the task force doesn't seem to measure the mission as I as stated I mean it's is supposed to be um not a decision making board but uh what's the term uh advisory like a pink tent it's a board to to give advice what's the what's the exact 0:01:09 it's advisory board advisory that's what i'm looking for thank you it's not an advisory board i've never seen an advisory board with 12 members third member that's that's i mean that's that's that's not that's a clue yeah that is not going to be a productive um i mean and and if if the mission is to is is to give technical advice which is what it seems like because it says it should the mission has to come up with a funding plan but that seems to me like a you know purely a technical presentation um so i mean it's not clear to me i i'll just say say what the trustees are the trustees say that i don't have much hope for productive result from that board not only that the the the size of the board is very large the timeline is very is is not practical either i don't think um well the timeline is being driven by by the fact that we're gonna be i mean whatever 0:03:23 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 1 of 10 GERS Retirement System (Board of Trustees) · Government of the Virgin Islands· Retiremen put has to go in place has to go in place soon yes so i mean the timeline is is is is realistic in that sense to me because we don't have a lot of time really put whatever needs to go in place has to go in place now uh for it to take effect i mean by the time that they take to to convene that for to name those board members and convene don't forget that the legislature approved a board for the cannabis bill a year and a half ago and the board hasn't been in panel as yet it's true a year and a half ago and that that wasn't 12 board members much less than 20 like eight or seven or something like that so i don't see how how that's that's i don't know i i don't i don't hold up much hope for anything coming out of it quite frankly well let us just hope the best come out of it i have a question that is um mr lego or mr nips because you guys were here when the young did his task force um i remember because i think avery and them were on it so i remember when they started that that was the same concept but it wasn't the same process where was this well the thing was to come up with um come up with some type of recommendation in regards to most mostly was structural changes um obviously the funding issue was always there but we changed the age retirement i we we submitted a lot of that and 98 of what the board recommended was approved but i'm that legislation now here's where i'm going with that didn't come from the board the grs was part of that process yes yes yes and this go around um considering the text i sent you guys apart from when that executive order came out was anybody even approached or contacted or questioned prior to the executive order well like i said um but i think about less than a year ago i had a meeting with the governor 0:05:09 he brought it up and before we had the the retreat in st cry yes yes and i told him well you know i told him that remember i told him about the prior task force and what they did and he asked me you know who i think should be on it and all of that i said somebody from the legislature maybe the committee and finance chair i said grs should have a representative on there i see that there's nothing about grs in there and his executive order but i don't know what more we can give them or what we can tell them and even if there's a grs member on the board i mean on this advisory committee it's going to be they're not going to listen because we already given them the information and they have not responded so what more can we do we even went and we gave them the idea about approaching the u.s treasury we're the ones that did that and we would have done the loan through grs we wouldn't have been the plan sponsor we had planned to do that and um he did tell me that he did speak with uh the um secretary of treasury in his last meeting but i'm not sure what more we can do we did all the studies that we we have had to have done the last governor went out and got another study told them the same thing we did the white paper it's there in black and white what is needed funding money is what i needed so um but like i said it to me it's very short and it's a short time to come up with you know with issues or you know you know with um recommendations and i did see that you talked about having professional experts i know the 0:07:04 last time that they asked to use the actuary when they would ask us can we use the actuary or they would call the actuary and then a bill came in for 80 000 hours and they didn't want to pay so if they're going to pay that we have to pay the bill if if they're going to ask for any any technical assistant they would have to have a contract with seagull directly the last time we had to pay i sent it to government house and they said no you paid they were part of you were part of the uh part of the group so so but like i said i think we have supplied everything that they need to make a decision um i don't know what more can be added you know that's that's why that's why i kind of think that i don't have as much concern about the time frame if if it were if they were going to jump in and and and get to work right away because as as you said all the studies are there you just have to start with the last one and move on you don't have to go go back through the the the the last report detail in lots of detail what the problem is and what you need to fix it we've had at least five reports since then all confirming the same thing they don't have to go through that they could start if they start from there and move forward and say okay this is what the report say this is what this is how much money we need to for the program and and and focus the focus the attention on developing funding options you know and and it's a technical review with technique you know it could be squeezed into four months i think if if if they focus it that way but i my concern is that it won't happen that 0:09:01 way i mean just by the composition of the board we're gonna have to 12 members it's gonna take us four months to assemble the 12. all right trustees if you can i call you right there trustee if you look at the third way as chantel trying to call you look at the third way as uh where's the existing gear system board and administrator oversight i need of critical review an overhaul for the benefit and protection etc etc unless i'm reading this this i read sentence incorrectly um then there's no need there's no need to put one of us on the board because he's already saying that we virtually we don't know what we're doing unless i'm misreading their sentence and then on the first whereas about the district court what does that have to do with a plan to save the system again the system is being criticized for carrying out our fiduciary responsibility he went to court we read a judgment and this is included in in in in his uh executive order again we being blamed for something else and none of none of those two things just don't make sense to me so don't don't expect to to to serve on the on his advisory committee well i wasn't looking for so i was just wondering if the conversation had even come because when you're planning because my complaints for this past year and a half is that we're hearing things in public 0:11:04 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 2 of 10 GERS Retirement System (Board of Trustees) · Government of the Virgin Islands· Retiremen the safe education the same time as everybody else so the same thing happened here where grs hears about it the exact same time i wasn't looking for to see if he's going to put one of us or mr nibs on that task force just the fact that this came out without saying well i'm about to do this so you know not necessarily seeking permission but at least a courtesy that this is what's coming out well we wrote that you know we got no response from the letter we wrote either true okay well everybody is saying that the board is bad so the governor has to follow up with that yeah right he has to follow up with that because he wants to be re-elected um that's a long time off from me now any other comments on this I mean nothing we can do about it just wait and see you and do what we're doing well I hope we we wouldn't have to say I told you so well he's had plenty of time from even before he became governor he came to one of the NC person meeting and of course he he thought he knew how to solve the problems of GIS then. Yeah his idea was a 401k it was changed everybody into 401k or you know he realized it's not possible so but apparently I guess they're going to be looking at some of our recommendations when they look at the mission for 0:13:04 funding so some of the things that we gave them they're going to be looking at i assume because they said they're going to explore certain options for the short term so they allow them for different things so with any luck our proposals and other things that we have submitted for years and they have to they're going to go through those okay so how does that tie in mr nibs how does that or kathy how does that tie into legislative fun uh responsibility of funding i'm sorry can you repeat that how does what tie into that because they're talking they're talking about finding the money so or and obligations does that will they be making recommendations for changes also it appears from the um from the um the the order that they're looking for ways of um they say a mental current to amend current law and proposed language when changes i just hope they understand that these changes cannot affect the current members that the changes could only be for new members coming in because they're going to be tied up in lawsuits if they and not just from the retirees they're going to be tied up in lawsuits from the actives if they try to change some of the benefits that they promised at this point in a person's career especially for those members that are vested i have a question um mr nibs did you say that um that that the system could in fact um issue a loan borrow money yes we have that authority yes that provision is in the code all right put on your thinking cap huh put on your thinking cap now that's the reason 0:14:53 i i well forget about the fact that so how much how much money are we talking about if you're going borrow money two billion two billion okay so explain to me how you think you could go to somebody to borrow two billion dollars when all you report saying you're going to be bankrupt in in two weeks three years going to the federal government going to the federal government u.s tragedy and mr bowry what the loan called for was to borrow two billion dollars to get a moratorium on any payments for a minimum of 10 years so that you would have time to grow the two billion dollars also it requested that um the loan be a two percent three percent interest rate and so that is a federal government yes it was a federal loan from the treasury department and given the two or three percent a moratorium on payments for 10 years or more if possible it was estimated that grs would have been able to um invest the money based on its prior history of returns and then be able to pay back benefits it also did require that the government increase the employer contributions because we didn't want to get the loan and immediately start paying the deficit so the employer would have had to increase their contribution rate oh okay and and and the court the court the court authorizes there yes it does i can send you the provisions afterwards we also went out and had our interviews with the insurance company also where we would have pledged i think it was the members life insurance policies right but that wasn't too much in our favor when we mentioned it to the governor and the 0:17:06 legislature on november 25th they were saying well why didn't you go ahead with it we said that it wasn't in our best interest and they wanted to to to to do it i gave the information to one senator i don't know what he did with it yeah the way it was structured we would the members would have had to agree to let this company or let grs have life insurance policies on their life the members would have gotten a certain percentage of the life insurance well their their beneficiaries would have gotten a percentage and then grs would have recouped the rest but the way they wanted to structure it it would have only yielded about a hundred thousand dollars up front for grs which wasn't beneficial they wanted the responsibility to invest the monies yeah they would have invested the money we wouldn't have had any control over it and again we would only realize a hundred thousand dollars immediately which was not sufficient for us to do anything i think grs has gone over and beyond trying to secure funding for this and that's not our responsibility for it as a responsibility to plan sponsor the legislature honey williams any comments no sir none okay okay any other comments any other trustee anyone else thank you all for your comments next item aboard retreat Who wants to address that? Mr. Nips? 0:19:06 A few meetings ago, the port retreat was scheduled for July. We usually have it in July. And there were some discussions as we got to whether it should be virtual or in person. it was like tabled for further discussion a board retreat it takes a 0:20:40 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 3 of 10 GERS Retirement System (Board of Trustees) · Government of the Virgin Islands· Retiremen while to put a board retreat together you need at least a good two to three months lead time it's not going to be if it's virtual it's not going to be as hard as prior years because our professionals used to have to have outside providers had to get had to have had you know airline reservations hotel and all of that stuff we usually would have the actuaries we would have the investment advisor we would have the cpas the auditors we would have in invite um attorneys from our firms to get governance training and ethics training which is a requirement an annual requirement so i'm not sure there's no hotel open where we can we'll have to social distance a retreat is is it's best for retreat to be in person because you get that that synergy with a virtual retreat people talking over each other you know there's a lot of gobble technical problems so we may have to just i think what we should do my recommendation was would be to move it out further and we wait until we see what's going to happen with the COVID because our retreat are usually three or four days and I would rather have it in a setting a large setting where you can distance just to mention I see that Carambola has been adding that they are open for business so i i agree with mr nims i don't think i the the attorneys doing the governance training would travel but they could they could appear by zoom so that wouldn't be a problem you'd probably want your actuary in person because you need to have that well they have asked me um alwyn asked me a couple weeks ago i told him that we had um we didn't come up with a date because of the covid situation but the actuaries could be in person too yeah yeah and the advisors can be in person i mean in uh virtual yes yeah um you know if you did it someplace like in the caramble or big board room you could you'd have to fix it so you space everybody plus you have a lot of um visuals you have a lot of visuals so you know all of that would have to be if you're gonna do it um virtual we have to coordinate all of that make sure everything is okay packages you know on so i would need at least mr chairman a good 60 or 90 days lead time to prepare because i'm not okay so you're talking about so you're talking about earliest october correct and you want it and you'd want to do it before the big tourist season because some people will still come down here to avoid the cold and so you you don't want to have it at that time when the hotel is going to be crowded and full of people coming from places like florida and texas which are coveted disaster areas so it's something you need to think about so that you know we don't put ourselves at risk it can be done virtually however like i'm saying some people may not be comfortable with it because you're going to be switching slides here switching slides there and all of that stuff um and like i say a retreat is where you have that camaraderie and you can sit down and talk and mingle and discuss anything you know you just get that um that togetherness like feeling and limited distraction yes that's true when we went to the bvi that was the best because we didn't have any phone ringing and people wasn't getting up and even the uh service provider said that was the best one that they ever attended because we were in we were in isolation you were held hostage okay and it didn't cause us it cost us probably less than having it in st 0:22:43 croy it wasn't that it wasn't it was just about the same or a little less um we had it in st john at west end a couple times maybe we need to look at the western see they open it up right i think they open up timeshares okay you know but like i say it's a decision that have to be made i would prefer in person however if we're going to do it virtually it's a time we have to have some time to prepare the slides and coordinate everything so it could flow correctly we'll have to get the service providers on board as far as their schedule time so i think right now the way things are i wouldn't think that we should do anything between now and september because it's a lot of uncertainties unless the board thinks otherwise but you should have a tentative date so you can start around it and check availability but tell people don't make any commitments but just reserve the time and you can start to plan around it see what's available see if the western is taking groups you know see if if not where you could go and just have a a plan so that when you decide to to go with it there is there is another option we could have a scaled down version and do it virtually i understand i understand everybody you know we all prefer the camaraderie and stuff there's no question about that as the same issue my son has he's getting ready to go to college and he wanted to go away for that reason but he ended up having to do it from home so you know i mean he you couldn't get him to apply to go to uvi because he wanted to go away to guys he wanted that he wanted that experience to just you know to him going to uvi would be still 0:25:15 still in uh just going to a 13th grade instead of a truck going to you you know yeah and so the idea idea i mean the selling point for him was he wanted this new experience people camaraderie and lo and behold i remember those days you couldn't wait to leave home and be on your own i mean the point i'm making is that there's no question about real art before the the in the you know the in place or the in person thing but this is in your this is in your normal so i mean so one other option to to to consider is having having virtually but have it more focused i don't know if if in the past do we have like a theme is that an area we want to focus on in any particular um i think we did have themes um last time yes right um yes we can scale it down a bit um we don't need an in-depth about the investments like we used to right we don't really have any managers really we so that can be scaled back we already rack uh seagull has already given us a lot of information so that can be an update that can be scaled back what i would recommend if we're going to be doing looking at doing a strategic plan for the next five years for the system and incorporate we may need one also we will need one also for haven side maybe we can do that at the board retreat bring in the budget and but you know a lot of things can 0:27:14 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. 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VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 4 of 10 GERS Retirement System (Board of Trustees) · Government of the Virgin Islands· Retiremen happen but that's a budget committee function i don't want to i want to step on uh trusty barry's uh thing but i mean all of that oh okay yeah maybe that can be discussed i mean and that would keep some people's attention i would think because we may be looking at probably scaling back you know as much as we can so yeah i think the other thing we could do is as a theme you know is to two things one is to um notwithstanding notwithstanding the governor's um um no notwithstanding his um task force that we we could um start our own discussion about options available options because the other the other thing is that what we could we one of the things have been in my mind is that we probably need to start to prepare our retirees for life after insolvency um you know i i don't know what what that looks like but i i think somehow we we have a duty i mean if if if we as we sit see insolvency coming then is there some things we could do to start to prepare or somehow insulate our retirees for for for what's coming well one down one that was one thing we thought about when we went we were looking to go to treasury for the loan because our thing was that if this does not 0:29:04 happen the treasury department you would have a lot of people you would have uncompensated care for the retirees more people will be on food stamps a lot of retirees probably moved to the to the mainland to so that they can have access to ssi i saw guam won a case some days ago and also the cost of living is cheaper yeah so it would have been a burden on the retirees so we were trying to see if we could have gotten that loan so at least we could have invest those money so that the system could have gone gone forward but now we know that's not going to happen but i understand what you're saying maybe we can bring in some financial professionals to help us what we can do is to do like a podcast type thing yeah members could go online and listen to it because we obviously can't do anything in person these days so we could look at maybe doing webinars or something like that which is what we're supposed to be doing yes yeah so we could look at webinars and podcasts you know and what they can do to scale down for insolvency and we need to also give it to the some of the active members too because we have a lot of active members who are a year two years away from retirement and i'm telling people you need to think about your retirement seriously because if you know it and you retire today and in three years you're going to get 25 of your annuity and you're too young for social security how are you going to manage K-Mort is in trouble, so you might not be able to work at K-Mort. What other jobs are there where you can get a part-time job in the territory? So we need to also do some planning for the actives. I agree. We need as much psychological advice as financial. We got to start preparing folks for dealing with this thing. I mean, the psychological damage is going to be as as bad as the financial damage exactly you know 0:31:04 so i i think um that's one thing we could do as a theme so i try to begin to figure something out how do we how do we start to prepare um retirees and as you said the the actives how do we start to prepare them for for life after the salvation another topic if we jump in um that i that we need to focus in seriously in some creative manner is haven site mall um if we're going to try to keep it what is how can we redirect it to turn it into something that will be um you know profitable and and realistic um knowing what's going on with the cruise industry so i think some of that discussion needs to be included and give us a perspective of what we're going to do with that in five years i read you one thousand percent and that's it i agree with you i think i think we need to i don't think we ought to necessarily assume that the way forward is is the way we came from you probably need to have some some analysis of what would be the highest and best use for property in the in the new as we go as we move forward i agree i agree that 100 okay so mr um excuse me one second 0:33:15 i'm assuming you can you can start thinking or planning for some type of retreat probably in October? I would sit and see and I'm hearing and what I'm listening to it seems like it's leaning towards a virtual scale down retreat virtual type presentation this is what I'm hearing if I can get if I can if we can get adequate space it doesn't have to be a three day or four day it can be two days or three instead of four so i'll i'll come up with something and make a recommendation but okay i like what uh trusty barry was talking about okay so that's on you okay okay unfinished business board governance policy oh that would be me okay so in your packet you had what i thought was the clean the latest version but that was the last one that i did uh attorney williams had sent me his redacted cleaned up version so I sent that to you this morning so everything is basically same it just was cleaner than the one you had so is there anybody who has not if I looked at it I know trusty Barry you hadn't had a chance to go through it have you had a chance to go through it now yeah yeah and mr. Liger did you have 0:35:12 a chance to refresh yourself no then you know the one you sent this morning no No, it's the same thing. It's just clean. What we went through was changing some words like from board member to trustee. I had missed a few. Everything else was the corrections we already made. So the one that you had gotten before. So they're just mostly cosmetic. But I wanted to go over quickly the main changes that we went over. Trustee Barry and cohen and i with attorney williams after getting the information from uh attorney smith we basically finalized it so let me make sure i'm gonna pull up oh what we worked on so that this morning yes So what happened is, there it is. So it's just basically the cleaner version with less mistakes. oh what I do I made a Google everybody seeing it you gotta teach me how to do this Oh share screen it's a 0:36:58 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 5 of 10 GERS Retirement System (Board of Trustees) · Government of the Virgin Islands· Retiremen bottom we'll do it next time you're over here so So basically, the main changes from what we originally started, Mr. Liger, we added, of course, for in meetings, we added what we can do for distance meetings. We added electronic meeting section. Okay. So we added, that's a completely new section that was never in the original one that we started with. So it talks about how, because in the past, if you weren't in physical attendance, your vote didn't count originally, and since everybody's now turning to virtual meetings, we made sure we made provisions that if any trustee had to be away and once they could participate electronically, they should have full coverage of the meeting as if they were present. but but but didn't we didn't we rectify this um this matter in reference to trustees couldn't vote if they were not present yes but now because of the fact that no we're nobody's physically present we have to make provisions okay so that's why this is now an issue not just for us but for most most boards and even legislature because if you are visual if you are here and we can see you're technically present a lot of calls the other time they were doing it on phone that's when they weren't considered official but if you're in the zoom meeting you're electronically present so having the responsibilities and being able to participate fully should be allowable based on the fact that everybody can see you and you're participating in lifetime can i um can i say something to qualify that yeah if you were on the phone and in country in the territory you could have voted but if you were you could not vote and just to clarify that that was a policy it was not in the bylaws because the bylaws did not strictly prohibit you from being on the phone and voting that was just a policy a policy yes of the board right and we did take care of that yeah but now we put it in our policy that you can once you're because of situations like this you 0:39:07 don't know if it's going to ever happen again it's not a standard and you have to you still have to let someone know in advance you can't just wake up and say i don't feel like going to the meeting you generally will let the chairperson know that yeah that you're going to be off island you're going to be wherever your situation is and the chairperson or will acknowledge the fact that you'll be in attendance via whatever medium you've chosen so we went through it has to be in one of these zoom like um apps right i mean you can't stay on your phone and do anything well you can do zoom on your phone but in the past remember we talked about this went through video conference online or any other electronic because in the past if we were traveling we would let someone know and let them know we're going to call in so we you know you've participated via telephone in the past but someone knew you know to share new in advance that they let when doing roll call they'll say well trustee callwood will be on will be joining us by phone it wasn't like oh the meeting started and i decided i'm not i don't feel like driving downtown and jump on the phone is anything special you have to do for an executive session anything if you offer that in the past we just basically declared everybody else off the line except for board members When it came to executive session, Mr. Niblet, clear everybody else off the line. 0:41:00 Okay. We've done it in the past. People were via VTC and on the phone. Because when we started using it, well, you didn't remember, you weren't there. We started using VTC more and more because we're trying to limit travel time. Seaborn was sketchy and then it was cost effective. so you study those are electronic mediums and then now with zoom teams or whatever other online meeting programs we are now able to do it where apart from physical touch the person is technically in the room so section l has been added as electronic electronic meetings and also uh trustee like one of the things we went through and made some changes with trustee responsibilities and how we should approach conversations outside we did spend quite a bit of time on that um during the part of the meeting making sure of course First we talked about the trustee's responsibility, come prepared, showing up to meetings, being cordial, and working on your own. 0:42:46 The code of conduct is now written in. We did have a discussion on nepotism and how it pertains to our territory versus others. Because the fact that this is the VI and everybody is almost, almost everybody is related some form or fashion, so it's very difficult, but we try to make it with less of an appearance of nepotism. So you can't always avoid nepotism because of the relationship statuses, but to avoid the appearance of nepotism. So we looked at, we did that. And then we spent some time on trustee representation and discussion. I'm trying to find that page. Everything else is the same. 0:44:07 We're talking about going out into the B and having conversation as a trustee representing yourself. I'm trying to find a page. If somebody calls, if you're going to go to a radio station and we're doing Trustee Bowery, we can speak on it. The fact that if you do an article last week, Trustee Bowery did an article two weeks ago, an op-ed, and making sure, Trustee communication there we go page 40 maybe yeah it's right here as i just found it okay how we utilize communication especially external communication we speak it you can speak as as yourself but the representation of the board and the system should be done by the chair or did somebody designated by the chair so to make sure that no no trustee is tied into not being able to speak their mind we have to go through this wording and make sure that we made it possible for trustees to speak for themselves even though they are a member of the board as long as it's stated that we're not speaking on behalf of the board unless we've been designated to do so by the chair So we talked about communication with planned participants, communication with GRS management and staff, communication with external parties, and that the chair is 0:45:08 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 6 of 10 GERS Retirement System (Board of Trustees) · Government of the Virgin Islands· Retiremen the spokesperson along with the administrator. This is where we spent quite a bit of time, when it came to Subsection 2, because a lot of times you may be called or even approached by somebody in the media, especially now with all these online, they ask you questions. Oh, you're on the board, what do you think, and they ask you for an interview. Everybody's welcome based on the policy, everybody's welcome to do so. long as you're not representing that you are speaking on behalf of the grs in order to speak on behalf of grs you need permission of the board chair if you're speaking as if i'm speaking as carol callwood who happens to be a member of the board or mr liger visit liger who happens to be a member of the board by speaking and i touch bases and that's fine but if you are going as long as you're not representing the board and saying i'm speaking on behalf of the board the board says this that's where this goes well i'm glad you you have it in writing but but in um my time on the board i thought this was a matter that was generally uh understood that yeah because we the chairman could actually speak on behalf of the board or the administrator anybody else could speak on their own behalf i thought this was generally understood and that's the thing a lot of this was understood and we just because we never really had a policy and that's why the policy what everything that's in this document is stuff that we've always done or talked about or that's carried over since before you and i came on but there was never anything in the document so we pulled everything into one document for those to come um attorney williams um anything else i need to touch bases on there are two items that we did not quantify um attorney smith if well maybe keep going And if you go to page 46 on the gift meditation, and then we'll go back. 0:47:31 Okay. Okay. This is 46. Page 46? Mm-hmm. We need to have a limit on the value of gifts that can be received by trustees, including meals and entertainment. Mr. Liger, you remember back in the day, anybody could offer trustees trick gifts or anything that would come and give you whatever. And I think over the past 10 years, they've started minimizing it. And then as we go to different conferences, you hear all of the horror stories from other districts where people are going to, are getting arrested, fired, relieved of their duties because they got golf clubs from this person or they took a ride, they took a boat trip with another person or situations like that. So we were looking at to make sure that we're covered here also but it's i i don't know what kind of amount of figure for because for the most part we don't do gifts on purpose i i but but i i thought i thought we we we had a policy is um uh 25 dollars for the for the for the most i thought that's what i understood many many years ago um the 0:49:12 trustees was always um prohibited of accepting gifts expensive gifts and things of that sort and i believe either 25 or 35 dollars was was the maximum that um a trustee can receive i remember having the conversation but i had the that's why it's here is nothing because i couldn't remember what that's right that's why you need to have it in writing so that anybody can turn to it i mean i don't i don't know that's why that's why we left it blank because i needed to get some feedback from everybody else but does anybody remember remember the amount am i correct in saying 25 dollars i don't remember i know we were having that conversation huh that was done before dr cohen um so i it's but i remember the conversation one time because they were talking i think we had just come back from someplace where somebody or somebody had gotten in some kind of trouble or something on the mainland and in fact that we didn't do it down here as much um as they do you know we only time we ever go out was when we did something as a body where they were being taken out and basically charmed by people left right and center all the time but we didn't have that down there right because i thought i thought there was there was some some sort of policy maybe wood of mouth policy where even if you were taken to a dinner it couldn't be more than 25 that's what i remember the conversation about in st thomas Yes, remember we told you St. Thomas $25 is going to get a sandwich at lunch. 0:51:05 Then you can get a plate of food at night time for $25. But in St. Thomas you can't even get a plate of food for lunch. Well, didn't you say that some folks said that they couldn't accept, they had to pay for their own dinner? Yeah, that's why they had their policy cap. So in order, the person can go beyond. If they're taken to dinner, they have to write down exactly how much they had. I have the receipt showing that the person didn't pay more than $40 for their dinner. So they actually had a log sheet showing that for the month, I went to lunch. Even if they went to lunch with this person, they had to show the receipt. Because I had to make sure there was no improprieties. 0:52:50 And one of the reasons is because every trustee was given money for the meals. So what do we want to, what figure do we want to put here? And remember the amount is adjusted by annually to reflect cost of living. 0:53:36 you put $50 in there we won't have to touch it for a little while letter C talks about the had the $50 limit I was trying to think but I think this was a a total, A I think was total cumulative value for the year. Any part of letter C talks about nothing should go over $50 for you know me when a was supposed to be for the air why why the silence throw the number mr chair you should answer that question well i i i have nine more months on the board i don't think it would be reasonable it's not for you it's for who to come i might have a month you know we don't know we're all on borrowed time so i would allow the those members who will be here longer than me make a suggestion that would be barry and cohen 0:54:20 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 7 of 10 GERS Retirement System (Board of Trustees) · Government of the Virgin Islands· Retiremen you guys have you guys have any guidance i mean any anything we could look at what other people do i mean That's why I got the $250 from. The $250 is why I pulled from other places. Everybody basically has $250. $250 for the year. Cumulative. Oh, you have a number. But remember, that's from above, but I had you put it, charitable contributions and everything else. Everything, almost everywhere is always $250. You always see $250, like that's a standard. with taxes now 250 is like the standard if you donate some place they cap it at 250. but but but but that 250 can be a one time or uh as cumulative that's a whole year all your everything that you could anything you get from whatever should not ever exceed 250 total all right if everybody else is doing 250 it's a standard so let's just adopt it that's a good idea oh we need to move on so yeah i'll go along with with trustee coin's um suggestion do we need a motion no we're just fixing it okay okay um the next the what do you say miss um trusty boy i'm sorry see he's going at 50. yes so the only other the other thing was two questions that i had i had left it for attorney Williams to touch bases with attorney I think we fixed that already attorney 0:56:09 William fish 23 we've already you need to go back to page 16 yeah well look at what 23 that's not the week that's that's what we fixed right that's fixed consistent with the electronic medium that would you find I'm not yes yes yes that's fine okay and then she's now back up going up 16 right here well that's 17 but that's why you could do that one first okay when we're in the discussion we're having and this is where we were talking about having conversation well outside but then we also at times are called upon to stay the position on certain things that's coming out of legislature so I'm gonna go to where it So to carry out policy, the Board directs staff some reasonable efforts to advocate for passage of legislation or regulations sponsored or supported by the Board. A case in point last month, Mr. Nips had to go in front of the legislature and, you know, we talked about are we in support of this or do we have, and we said, well, we have no say so because it doesn't matter to us so we looked at this is where we talk about what do we do do we support it stay neutral or actively speak against it so that if you're going to sponsor our supported legislation we support legislation and these are the reasons or sorry we adopt the position of support if they the legislation or the recommendations are consistent with objectives providing sound support um retirement plan for the members if it expands or improves the benefits and services if it increases resources to address equity issues, if it improved the delivery of benefits and services, if they're consistent with the 0:58:02 investment policy adopted by the board, if they preserve the assets, if they reduce inequities or deficiencies, if they give more flexibility to the board and administration of the system, if it improves the opportunity for members to save, if it attempts to secure and obtain monies owned by a plan sponsor, or if it seeks to expand access to healthcare for GRS members in a prudent manner we are in full support of these legislations and we are we will say that when it came to taking the neutral position or a position of saying we have no position one if it does not significantly or adversely affect impact impact the benefits of services as in the last legislation that we had discussed or this is the one where the concern was does it affect the composition of the board or process by which individuals appointed to serve as members of the board the board may however sponsor support provisions of legislation deemed necessary to clarify or implement enacted legislation that either provides for the election of members or otherwise changes accomplishment board so as in the case of what they tried to do last time we recommended just taking that i think just taking it out but what is the feedback i i still verbalize uh taking it out Dr. Canada, Mr. Liger. 1:00:30 You want to take number three? 2B, the highlighted B. 2B? Yes. Maybe the simple way to look at it is, does the board want to be in a position that if the governor or senator sponsors a piece of legislation that says the board should be comprised of x amount of persons with these types of station and that type of legislation pedro you kind of froze up there for a minute yeah you gotta repeat that page because you really got part of what you said I was saying maybe the simple way to look at it is, do the trustees want the board to take a position if the governor or senator with a sponsor piece of legislation that says the board should be comprised of X number of individuals with these types of requirements, educational or otherwise, similar to what was done several months ago? that's what to be basically addresses yeah it's basically if the answer is you think the board should take a position then we need to take out to be if your position is the board should not take a position then we leave it so this basically says that if something comes up we don't take a position on it at all so sorry does that also mean that if if we're asked let's let's say you're request you're asked to 1:02:16 to testify so you just say no is that what you say that the board has no position on this okay the board takes no position on this if you leave it in then your response should be pursuant to are you say the section the board is prohibited from taking a position and this type of legislation now if you take it out if you take it out now then your position now I you know in February I was asked to testify on you know that bill where they wanted to improve the the education requirement for board members and of course we didn't think it would we were not against as I was not against increasing the education requirements my position was it was just not going to help the system because the system problem was funding amazingly when we got there I think we had one question about the book about the bill and they asked us everything else 1:04:08 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 8 of 10 GERS Retirement System (Board of Trustees) · Government of the Virgin Islands· Retiremen about carambola everything else so we need to be careful when we decide we want to go and testify about something because once you get there it's open to to be questioned for anything then then this this would be a cover it for any board remember to say well our board policy prohibits us from taking a position on any legislation that deals with this issue the problem with that is you know they're doing wrong why do you want to keep quiet yeah yeah so that's so that's why it's like this like you've got it yeah this answer now what do we want to do I'm gonna weigh in on this I think you need to leave your options open you can always decide as a board later on when the bill comes up that you won't take a position but you don't want to permanently ban yourself because what if they suddenly pass the bill saying that we're going to have 30 members that are going to expand the board to be 30 members and no educational requirements whatsoever you may want to take a position on that and you don't want to be prohibited so i think you should do it on a case-by-case basis and preserve your right to make that decision at the time depending on the legislation that makes sense yeah which means we would delete this this paragraph correct yes now without that was that dr. Cohen but we gave it to others who weren't part of that conversation okay I agree delete it okay and section three basically the same as always nothing changed since the last one so this is the only other thing Kathy I was unsure so I told Pedro ask Kathy I mean there's a provision in the investment statute that allows you to vary and we've used that position before if and I walked off without my code if you think it will negatively affect so Yes. I'm trying to read it in context. I was? 1:06:00 Why? Sorry, thanks. Yeah, I'm trying to read it in context. No, no, no, no, no, no. I think I missed it. Oh, okay. I mean, yeah, I think you want to comment on it. one of my favorite sisters could you meet your uh well i think i think he can't hear you yeah i would think that in situations where it's gonna um affect your ability to carry out your fiduciary responsibilities you would want to be able to comment on that okay okay i mean i i don't think we could have thought of a situation where this would be applicable but going back to your earlier statement kathy you want to keep your actions open i can think of one when they passed the legislation trying to force the board to redo loans to open a loan program that was legislation that would have affected your your fiduciary responsibilities and that then that fits um that would be it should be covered on the on the um the earlier section but we want to oppose what we believe it's going to it has to come to the board first it said you have to something has to come to the full board that's what this section says so we don't just say decide it or not it's not stated it's there so that we have to have the discussion as a board before we decide others are written but in order for this to take place it has to be discussed but that's given that's if 1:07:54 you have time because sometimes things come up quickly and you the board may not have time to meet to discuss that's the only you know the only drawback to that you know sometimes you could be there and they add an amendment to some legislation that would affect your responsibility and you don't have time to get to the board. You may be able to get to the chairman, but you can't get to the full board. So that's just limiting you. But, you know, I mean, it doesn't happen often, but it is a situation that could happen and has happened. So the recommendation is to let it stay. Yeah, I would let it stay. And, you know, the only problem is bringing it to the attention of the full board. sometimes like i said you may not be able to get to the full board when time permits yeah put the time permits or something so that gives you a leeway if something comes up like today they tell mr nibs they're gonna do something tonight he can get to the board chair but he might not be able to get to everybody so pager is that good it was time permits or no i would i wouldn't even add that i'm saying with the technology we have today it's just a matter of sending out a text or email and at least getting a sense of you know what the board members thinking is okay or doing a poll vote if you have to but you know pedro everybody doesn't always respond right away that's the only problem so you deal with what you have already okay so everything else is the same everything else was just cosmetic we gonna go through it one more time adjust all the numbers and letters and the formatting and it's ready for printing and whatever else we do with it Any other questions, any questions at all? 1:09:45 So if we get this, Dr. Canley, your lips are moving, but no sound is coming. Yes, I was muted. Sorry. So. Does this policy have anything dealing with sexual harassment? Now that I'm ready for the thing that has to pass, you're going to bring in something else? I was not in committee. I don't believe it specifically mentioned that. 1:11:55 No, I don't. I didn't put anything in there. I never thought about it. Right. But in the ethics, there was some mention of a couple things that sexual harassment would be in there. that is something that is critical that can we approve it and also no because we'll have to put that somewhere in a code of ethics or we'll have to add that to the ethical statement of ethical conduct? Give me a second. That's 13. I'm sorry. That's okay, no. It's something that we're trying to get this up for austerity. 1:12:26 I think shallow harassment has been elevated beyond ethics. that's more that's more like criminal behavior and I think they'll be here stepping and and what happened I think most of this stuff that I dealt with was financial I didn't even put so we just need a statement of you should put also a statement on discrimination and sexual harassment you should have both just just to conform and discrimination question so we won't be able to pass this until I put that in there so I have to 1:13:26 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 9 of 10 GERS Retirement System (Board of Trustees) · Government of the Virgin Islands· Retiremen do that and then send it back out and then come back yes well what why can't you just put a session harassment should not be would not be it has to be a full statement do you have any do you have any written documentation right now Pedro that you can pull up should be an article look at watching the GRS employee handbook that would be a start and we could probably modify that to put in here that's in my other computer always make jump drive so my recommendation be that you know we've had the discussion we table this we add those two provisions about sexual harassment and discrimination and then bring it back for the next board meeting okay it's all dr calendar's fault i'm sorry about that oh that's okay because something we needed to do so eight nine and ten will be sexual harassment and discrimination so i'll pull the information i'll pull the what's in the employee manual handbook and make it and make it referable to the board oh wait a minute i might be able to do i have it on my um i'm gonna stop sharing for a minute okay yes but um so we'll continue um mr chair we can continue and then i'll put it in and come back but but but even if it is there we're probably gonna have to amend the language that's I decided trust these ways that's I said my time we come back out of new business I might be able to have it before we close out hello all right yes so but if we continue with the meeting and do get finished our new business by the end of new business and we come back into all business before we close out i may be able to have it okay we do that yes we can okay okay so this portion of the meeting will be close to the public for matters pertaining to trade secrets or financial or commercial information or personal or legal or matters whose premature disclosure would frustrate the implementation of the proposed agency action i need a motion to go to executive session 1:15:25 some some moved second um okay frosty carwood yes sorry yes rusty cohen yes Mr. Liger, I can't hear you. 1:17:33 Yes, I'm here, I'm here. I said yes. okay trustee smith excused chairman calendar yes five yes one absent excused all right so we take a few minutes okay need the five minute break yes i don't because i i have no breakfast what does that mean huh well i am ready to continue before you do that let me just say since there's no retreat in july there isn't a board meeting scheduled so you would need to have a date for July last Thursday so it would be the 23rd if we're following the normal calendar yes okay one second I wait I guess I think that I had accepted negotiations let me double check the date because I think I had accepted I think that was on the dates OCB has sent me Hmm. Yeah, Carolyn? Where is that? Yeah, Carolyn. 1:18:20 Okay, where is that? I'm not being here because I was taken half the day off because I committed to some for my organization yeah on the 30th if they do it on the 30th because i committed to it and it's it's a big event planned and i i have to do hosting duties too so i can't change because nothing was on the calendar for that date when it was suggested so i said okay fine Any day we're dead leave. 1:20:09 It's the one day. When did it? It's Thursday. Wait. The dates are acceptable for me. Which date is that? The C-Coward? Which date is that? The 30th. I thought it was on the 23rd. The 23rd. Okay, the 23rd is fine. That's good. Okay, perfect. everybody 23rd is okay yeah yeah all right next board meeting on the 23rd okay great thank you okay I mean so we can move on unfinished business haven't said update for the next board meeting on the 23rd will you get the documents before the 20th second well one of the provisions and the governance policies that you should get all these documents three business days before the meeting how many three okay what section is that um i don't know that i could pull it up but i know it's in the beginning i'm not i'm just kidding right not really We're taking our five-minute break. 1:21:16 Was it, yes, we had a break? No, no. Mr. Nick? Yes. Ready to do the Heyman's head update. Yes, sir. I thought you said you wanted to. All right. Wow, like I said, no. I'm ready. I am ready. Okay. Okay. Justice. 1:23:27 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. 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