General Ret system 2012 report

[slick]

As a retired union employee I received the Annual report for 2012. I have not opened the glossy paged colored front page report. Have any other retirees read their mail?

[jt1]

As a retired union employee I received the Annual report for 2012. I have not opened the glossy paged colored front page report. Have any other retirees read their mail?

Seems like sending out nice, glossy reports to thousands of retirees is a good use of money.

Has the pension system heard of posting PDFs?

[Honky Tonk]

Seems like sending out nice, glossy reports to thousands of retirees is a good use of money.

Has the pension system heard of posting PDFs?

What? And put someone's brother in law out of business?

[Hermod]

What? And put someone's brother in law out of business?

No sense wasting the money on retirees especially with the bankruptcy court closing in and possibly shutting off the honey pot.

[313WX]

Seems like sending out nice, glossy reports to thousands of retirees is a good use of money.

Has the pension system heard of posting PDFs?

The only problem with that idea is that I bet a fair share of the retirees don't use the computer.

[Honky Tonk]

The only problem with that idea is that I bet a fair share of the retirees don't use the computer.

That's right, all people over 25 are too stupid or senile to use one....... Anyone know how to turn the crank on this "phone" thing?????

[313WX]

That's right, all people over 25 are too stupid or senile to use one.......

I didn't say that at all.

But back to what I did say, what other reason do you think it would be required by law [[assuming it is) that the pension reports are printed and mailed out?

[Hermod]

I didn't say that at all.

But back to what I did say, what other reason do you think it would be required by law [[assuming it is) that the pension reports are printed and mailed out?

Dunno about pensions, but publicly traded corporations are required to send out hard copy annual reports unless the stockholder requests them in electronic form. I believe they have to be sent out within 90 days of the close of the corporation's fiscal year.

[corktownyuppie]

Technology preferences aside, I believe the reason why you receive pension reports by mail is because they are required to be sent by law.

[Honky Tonk]

Technology preferences aside, I believe the reason why you receive pension reports by mail is because they are required to be sent by law.

You may be right, but in thick, multi-color paper stock? I would think in this day and age that kind of thing would go the way of the house phone. [[the one with a crank)

[slick]

Now that the glossy computer illiterate comments are out of the way, I did try to read the report.
Page 2 intro by Susan Glaser , Chairperson. It mentions assets of 2 billion dollars. It is only 77% funded.
The rest is a lot of numbers ad figures that looks pretty rosy.

[Wesley Mouch]

You may be right, but in thick, multi-color paper stock? I would think in this day and age that kind of thing would go the way of the house phone. [[the one with a crank)

Its obvious the pension boards should be prudent. But I'm not too worried about printing costs.

If this is how they printed in the past, then let it go this time.

[cla1945]

As a City of Detroit retiree, I feel this annual report is redundant....2012? Why bother? It's 2014, this is two years old. I know many general city employees and they have always received these reports 2 years late. A day late and millions of dollars short!!!

[Novine]

Didn't Orr stop the city's contributions to the pension funds too? If so, that will only exacerbate the shortfall.

[Wesley Mouch]

Didn't Orr stop the city's contributions to the pension funds too? If so, that will only exacerbate the shortfall.

If he 'stopped' the contributions, he was only doing so as part of 'righting the ship'. He knows what's going on the the pension funds. He feels that money is better used by the City to stay afloat and be able to participate in a 'Grand Bargain'.

Stopping contributions doesn't exacerbate the shortfall. It may actually help the retirees by enabling the 'Grand Bargain'.

Pouring money towards the funds regardless of the impact on the city might have rather accelerated their collapse.

[corktownyuppie]

If he 'stopped' the contributions, he was only doing so as part of 'righting the ship'.

I'm not even sure that it was Orr's decision. Given that the way they had been funding the pension contributions in the past [[I believe) was to borrow the money to make the necessary deposits, the contributions had to stop once the lending stopped.

CoD's ability to borrow has been impaired for some time now, and at the time of the Consent Agreement, the city was required to sign it in order for the State to step in and send them some needed to money to make cashflow.

[Eber Brock Ward]

So quick question: Did the state package of bills require oversight of the pension boards?

I think this is a key piece of this for both the city/residents and the pensioners, in both cases because if the boards are investing in phony baloney vehicles, then we'll be right back where we found ourselves, since we can't get out from pensions like a VEBA, and the city/residents are still going to be on the hook for any shortfalls, even after the BK is over.

[[^ How's that for a run-on?)

[corktownyuppie]

So quick question: Did the state package of bills require oversight of the pension boards?

Yes it does.

http://insurancenewsnet.com/oarticle...l#.U5e-Bie9KSM

-- HB 5570, sponsored by state Rep. Ken Yonker, R- Caledonia, would tighten restrictions on travel and expenses for the city's pension boards and establish an investment committee that has the authority to recommend or reject pension investments.

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/05/14...in-bankruptcy/

HB 5570 establishes an investment committee to recommend or reject pension investments

[Eber Brock Ward]

Ty. Not that I'm doubting you, but they may have gotten it wrong.

Looks like SFA analysis says committee recommends, then existing board could approve/reject recommendation. [[Though for disapproval, not sure what plan of adjustment says, which us what the bill references):http://www.legislature.mi.gov/docume...SFA-5570-L.htm

[Dumpling]

I still haven't voted on the Grand Bargain yet [[I know I need to within the next few days).
Am perusing the Plante and Moran audit at the michigan.gov link that Packman posted
above.
This sort of thing is not at all my wheelhouse, and I don't understand parts of the audit
and parts of the GRS annual report, but aside from the City of Detroit not paying in
its previous customary fashion, I don't see the GRS floundering at this point in time.
To wit, in the Plante and Moran audit, there was a shift from AAA to AA for corporate
securities. Out on the web, it says, "Standard & Poor's lowered its long-term
sovereign credit rating on the U.S. to AA+ in 2011 - only 4 U.S. nonfinancial companies
remain AAA: ADP, ExxonMobil, J&J, and Microsoft".

[Dumpling]

It is a little unnerving to see such a large chunk of NR investments as well as
such a large year over year corporate debt uptick of NR in the Plante & Moran
audit that Packman posted a link to. However the State of Michigan law limits
pension investments to fairly safe ones - though there may be a large NR loophole
in this law that should be corrected - and currently, even if this NR is speculative
grade, the recent default rate for speculative grade is at a historic relative low
of 2%, average speculative grade default rate being 4.5%.

[Dumpling]

The Plante & Moran had some details on the pension "back office". The main
pension bank is Bank of New York. The local bank handling benefits transactions
is First Independence Bank. The auditors felt that this bank should have a
nominal monthly balance of zero at one point during a month since the bank
was simply to handle the inflow and outgo. Instead this bank has typically
an extra $20 million of pension money on hand at any given time; again this
is not my arena at all so I can't say whether this is good or not.

[Dumpling]

For a little while the online link to the GRS website wouldn't work for me. So I had
to locate my $15 glossy hard copy of the report and study that. I mostly trust the
current board of trustees as listed on page six and I will include Dave Bing as
trustworthy for pension fiduciary duty although some might not. These are mostly
current and former city employees and appointees, not investment professionals,
as noted. However, various segments of the pension funds are managed by investment managers as noted on page 35.
I think there may be an additional layer of investment advisers to the pension fund as
well, and then there is state law, and then there is an annual audit.

[Dumpling]

So I am fairly confident about the quality of the GRS investment advisers. However,
good advisers charge commensurate fees, and one of the considerations when building
an investment portfolio is that lower fees are more advantageous especially for smaller
portfolios. This shouldn't be so much of a concern for the GRS since it is a large fund
but I don't know whether the GRS fees are reasonable.

[Dumpling]

Another highlight.

"Duty disability rates were found to be higher than previously assumed".

I will take it that this is partly due to poor working conditions due to the city's poor
financial condition so in the future rates should go down.