The Pension Board meeting began with all pension board members present except for our Treasurer, Sara Lenehan, who had a family emergency that prevented her attendance.
It should be noted that the Police Pension Board Meeting was preceded by a Funding Committee Meeting at 8:00 a.m., that was also attended by City Director Joan Adcock who asked many questions during that meeting concerning our pension funding for her better understanding of our existing condition. Just prior to that meeting, I presented Ms. Adcock with a copy of my “Austerity Measures” that had been previously requested by City Director Gene Fortson as well as a copy of the City Attorney’s memorandum on those measures dated May 10, 2011, that had been provided to Mr. Fortson by the City Attorney but did not include the Warrant and Subpoena fees suggestions.
During that meeting, City Manager Bruce Moore provided us with another City Attorney’s Opinion on those recommendations, dated June 7, 2011 that was almost identical to the memorandum we had already received from Mr. Fortson except that it did list the Warrant and Subpoena fees suggestions by basically stating under each of the two suggestions that:
State law does allow for the collection of a [dollar amount] fee for each [warrant or subpoena] served by the police department. This fee cannot be collected at the time of service, but may be included in the entry or judgment. Whether to charge a fee [for such service] is a policy matter and the use of those fees would be a policy matter.
Of course, that was exactly what we already knew but, at least, the City now has their City Attorney’s opinion on those issues and it is still my suggestion that the City implement such fees that have not previously been implemented and designate the proceeds of those fees for our Police Pension Board.
At approximately 9:00 a.m., the regular pension board meeting began and City Director Joan Adcock remained in attendance and notified our pension staff that she would be in attendance at all future meetings. That announcement surprised me but is consistent with her efforts to help our pension fund so; perhaps, it really should have come as no surprise at all.
The pension board meeting only lasted for a little over an hour and the only things of particular interest, at least to me, were the addition of three more members to our pension rolls including Danny Sabo (aka “Yoda” on the SWAT team), Robert Littleton, and Larry Ringgold all of whom we welcome to the ranks of “retired guards.”
The only other thing I thought was of interest was that Don Wood, unbeknownst to me, again brought up the issue concerning my checking into obtaining a custodian for our pension fund after hearing from the new member of our pension staff who reported that Ms. Lenehan, who was not present to personally respond to a question on our Agenda, was now waiting for a response from her CPA licensing authority before responding to the question posed to her by Farris in the previous board meeting when he asked her to simply tell us how we could resolve the matter of her August 3rd email to everyone’s satisfaction and she replied that she wanted to wait until our next board meeting to respond to that question.
It was obvious from Don’s subsequent statements that the comment presented from that staff member about Ms. Lenehan’s proffered excuse for not answering that question caused Don considerable disdain that resulted in his making a new motion that I be allowed to check into establishing a custodian for our fund. I quickly seconded that motion expecting that doing so would lead to a subsequent discussion of that matter and that, perhaps, my previous article on that matter may have had its intended result. However, Farris immediately moved to a vote on that motion that was defeated by a vote of 3-2 with only me and Don voting for approval. Again, Don was quite upset by that vote and claimed he did not understand the attitude of the other board members but I quickly told him that, while I agreed with him wholeheartedly, the fact remained that his motion was overruled and we then moved onto the remainder of the issues on our Agenda that lead almost immediately to our final adjournment.
Shortly after our adjournment, I followed Kathy Lindsey to our pension office to get her copy of our pension meeting audio and, just before rounding the last corner of the hallway, I looked back and noticed that Don was angrily speaking to Farris outside the meeting room. Although I could not hear what was being said, I just smiled to myself and thought “give him hell, Don.”
While I know that was not a “Christian” thought, I couldn’t help but understand Don’s utter frustration after having felt it myself during our previous pension meeting. However, since that meeting, I have come to the realization that our very real fears concerning the future payment of our pension benefits by the City are obviously not shared by the rest of our Board or even apparently by our membership. Thus, I must now resign myself to simply let that issue die after having provided our membership with what I consider to be sufficient warning that those fears should NOT be ignored. In the future, I can only hope and pray that those fears will never reach fruition because simply saying, “I told you so” in that event, will not help fill my empty wallet.
Listen to the audio of the October Police Pension Board Meeting HERE
This time, I did not include any notation concerning the location of the conversations on the pension meeting audio because the meeting was only one hour in length.
Steve,
I think I raised the point previously, as you are again here. What is to prevent the Treasurer from deciding for personal reasons that she will not issue somebody’s monthly pension check or that she will not pay a bill incurred by the Board (say legal fees defending the Board in a Case where the City takes a stand contrary to the Pension Board)? This appears to me to possibly fall under malfeasance of office and might be covered by State law or possibly by the code of ethics for CPA’s. (Since they handle other people’s money, they probably have some written guidance that includes or touches on ethics and professional behavior.)
I know that there are some reading this who will immediately disregard the issue because of the messenger, but we all need to stop and think where this type action could end if allowed to stand.
Scott,
Sorry I didn’t see your post until now but I have been rather busy taking a nap (eat your heart out Ha!).
Seriously, there is no reason, in my opinion, that would stop the Treasurer from deciding not to pay anything if she first claimed she wanted to wait on a City Attorney’s opinion or some other opinion as she is now waiting on her CPA licensing authority because that is exactly the problem we now face. While it is true that some recourse, as you mentioned, would likely be available to our fund, that recourse could take a considerable time that many of our pension members may not have without their pension checks.
The ONLY thing that could possibly prevent this from occurring at some time in the future, again in my opinion, is for our pension board to look into the establishment of a custodian that would eliminate the Treasurer or anyone else connected with the City from ANY responsibility for issuing those checks as is allowed under Arkansas law.
Unfortunately, the majority of your pension board has twice rejected that idea in favor of offering the City an “olive branch” on that issue. However, yet again in only my opinion, doing that under those circumstances is tantamount to handing them a chainsaw that they could conceivably use to cut down our whole “olive tree” and not simply take only a small branch.
Finally, I understand fully what you mean by your last statement as Don and I have been the “messengers” on this issue that have been disregarded in the past two pension board meetings and, consequently, I shall now simply let that issue die, as I mentioned near the end of this article, because I don’t know what else I can do under those circumstances.
Thanks,
Steve
Steve,
This past Thursday, 11-12-2011, I was present when Ms. Lenehan and retired Chief Rowan were talking about this issue. Ms. Lenehan said that her reluctance to issue the check stemmed from her understanding of her fiduciary responsibility to the Fund. As I understood her, Ms. Lenehan believes that Pension funds may only be spent to pay pension benefits or to pay for items directly related to the administration of the pension benefits (for example, funds can be used to buy a computer to keep track of pension funds, but may not be used to throw a birthday party for a pension member or employee).
Ms. Lenehan explained that her reluctance to issue a check to pay for the advertising stemmed from a concern that the expenditure of funds for advertising of any type would not fall within either category. I have to say that after listening to her I feel much less concerned about the type of controlling scenario we were discussing.
I wish that Ms. Lenehan would take the opportunity to reply her on the website to address the concerns and perhaps make her position clear. I cannot fault her, however for not posting on this website as so many posts are subject to immediate personal attacks that do nothing but inhibit the flow of information. She may alos feel constrained from posting here since she is a City employee and would be speaking personally rather than for the City Administration as a whole. If she does post here, I hope that all of the readers of this website (mostly members of the Pension Fund) will “play nice”.
Thanks,
Scott
Scott,
Due to the fact that our Pension Fund is now supposed to be removed from the “projected insolvent fund” list at the PRB, I know longer have the concerns I had before about her not paying our benefit checks because our removal from that list eliminates any ability she may have had to claim that such a denial of benefits was the result of our projected insolvent fund status.
As I mentioned in a previous article, that concern is no longer one I will pursue because it was evident that my fellow board members and our membership did not share those concerns. Thus, the only reason this item is even on our Agenda is due to a question posed by Farris to Ms. Lenehan who requested another month to consider that question before responding. While it has been several months since her request for more time due to her absences or those of Mr. Moore that required the issue to be tabled, that matter could certainly be eliminated from our future Agendas, as far as I am concerned, if it had ever been brought up before.