ability for members. we have members with limited plan choice. they do not have all maps availability based on geography, active employees and early retirees. diving into that on the next two pages. for the active employee population there are 73 active employees to the most recent review who live in the zip code with limited plan choice. when we refer to limited plan choice kaiser and blue shield plans were not available, at least one kaiser plan or at least one blue shield plan. majority live in the geographies -- agree graffitis referenced today. that is 73 out of a total active employee population of 1,049

employees. page 7 is 436 early retirees in the zip code with a limbed plan. you can see the top three rows at the table. they are 68 in california. at least one plan is not available. 321 live outside of california but in the u.s. 47 live outside the u.s. it is 436 total out of 780 with limited plan choice geographically. we are going to present four recommendations for all populations. these should look familiar. we discussed these in the april health services board meeting. they apply to both active employees and early retirees.

recommendation a a separate plan for those individuals that we just discussed. the 73 active employees, 436 early retirees who have limited plan choice due to geography. again, no one has come up with a betternam than city plan choice not availability. i welcome creative thought. >> we will engage in creative thought. >> city plan choice not available in this presentation. item b is a win for all. lower overall plan cost. the united healthcare contracting strategy with providers and ppo network with no adverse impact whatsoever. slightly lower rates paid for services to the same providers. items c and d are plan design related.

changing the prescription drug co-payments to match those in access and trio plans. increase the deductibles in the city plan. they are currently the same. i am following the pages that talk details. so from line 12 is a single page addressing each of the four recommendations. on page nine the additional cost we have captured in the right hand column. we project an additional cost to the employers of $270,000 for the active employees and $620,000 for early retirees. we updated from the april presentation now that we have created the rate cards and done the actual calculations. the idea is lower contributions for many of the active employees

recognizing that some already do have special subsidy agreements, but for all active employees create consistency and lower contributions. for all retirees in those geographies with no full plan choice. >> all right. page 10. >> page 10 is the migration to the selling elect plus network or what you need healthcare calls select plus network. no disruption to members. some communication needed. overall savings $485,000 for active, $200,000 for early retirees. it is higher for active employees this is a california ppo network change. >> page 11. >> increasing pharmacy so-payments. it was asked to be clarified at

the last meeting we would not be changing the current specially drug cost changes in united healthcare. i captured that under member impact. projected savings $150,000 for active, 140,000 for early retirees. the table below shows the current co-payments for retail and mail order prescription drugs in the city plan and what we proposed in 2019. those are the co-payments in the proposed columns for the blue shield plans today. >> all right. >> the out of network deductsibles we added information since the last meeting. 5 percent of present dollar in the uhc city plan going out of network. now there are 1127 unique members, many of these are

individuals who may only have one service or laboratory service associated with the visit to the in network physician. overall the cost impact, savings less than you saw with the other recommendations 17,000 fo for active, $16,000 for early retiree. that would take the out of network deductible to twice in network same as we presented in february. it promotes use of in network provider in the city plan. >> yes? >> how many people are out of network? >> there were a total based on united healthcare of 2017, 1127 unique people used at least one provider that was out of network. >> that is a lot of people out of network. this is going to affect a lot of

people, right? >> it has potential to impact in 2017 it would have impacted. keep in mind if it is a $20 service and someone was already within the out of network deductible, this is the -- doesn't mean they are paying more if they never go got got t0 our 5000 or 750 out of network. they would have to incur at least $250 as single enrollee of expense out of network for this to have impact on their cost sharing >> the 1100 people are early retirees or active? >> a blend of both. i don't have the numbers split between the two populations. >> are there questions on this recommendation? hearing none, let's proceed. >> we have a premon pages 13 and

14 for early retirees only. presented at the last discussion, that is to change the rate tier ratios in the city plan over a three year period to migrate them to become consistent with the distribution of the rates and how they distribute by tier to blue shield. this would benefit early retiree families in the city plan. no change to how we approach rating for the single retirees in city plan or in kaiser or blue shield. this is only a benefit to certain members. that is specifically early retiree families on page 14. we displayed the number of individuals based on present census in retiree plus one and retiree plus two or more tiers in the city plan under the early

retiree impact column. >> if the board is looking for those numbers they are in the third column on the table. >> based on our review of the costs, $175,000 of additional costs for this first year of the three year phase-in. >> commissioner sass. >> to confirm, this doesn't change the total coast of the plan. but it shifts more of that cost to the employer who picks up the e only as opposed to plus one and plus two. >> correct. it does increase retiree only total rate for united health care city plan. however, the difference part of the formula goes up by the exact same amount. that is why it has no impact to the retiree only in the city plan. >> other questions or comments?

okay. summary of your recommendations? >> page 15 summarizes recommendations. for b, c and d, this delivers a lower claim base in our forecast for 2019. we are suggesting that be reflected so that is our second bullet. the savings from b, c, d would reflect in the rate cards which represent approximately a 3% reduction off the total rates in our calculations that we will review in a bit. for a and e we recognize this causes additional costs to the employers. when you add those three amounts, it is $1,065,000. we refer back to the february information that we presented and specifically page 8 of that

february material noted that by policy we applied $554,000 to the rates which we were going to do anyway. that was proof. there is $1,107,000 left in the carry forward balance of the rate stabilization reserve. we are recommending to use $1,065,000 of the remaining 1,107,000 that would leave a small balance in the stabilization reserve to cover the additional costs to employers of recommendation a. >> someone has asked what would happen to the 42000 remaining dollars? we could follow the example of some national activities at the national level and put it into a slush fund that the board would use to go out and do nefarious things with the permission of our council. we are not going to do that.

we will figure out a way to benefit the members in this plan. don't worry about the 42,000. we will keep track of it. our c fo promised that. i know she will. we will use it for the intended purposes. >> commissioner sass. >> the reason i asked for the 2017 rereserve summary was to point out. this was december of 2017. in that year we spent $9 million more than per claims than we predicted. that is line one of the schedule. we were $9 million of actuarial losses. we wind up with $6 million net actuarial loss here which used up all of the stabilization

money that exited prior to that and $139,000 of contingency money to cover 20178. the reason -- 2017. the reason we have the difference between the expected and the actual. this $1,661,000 came into existence at the end of 2017. we are in the middle of 2018. we already know if the information in the financial report that pamela will present is accurate, we have excess claims in 2018, also. over $1 million. i would have to look an at the exact number. the probably is the $1.6 million that appears to be available at the beginning of 2018 is likely to be gone by the end of 2018 as

a result of the losses for this year. if we make a commitment to use the money for 2019 that all of the losses that we experience for 2018 with the exception of 41,000 will come out of the contingency fund. then for 2020, we will be adding premiums to the city plan to start recouping the stabilization reserve like we are doing this year with blue shield. i don't see the logic in spending money that existed in january of 2018 for something we are going to do in 2019. you have taken 30% of it if that is the policy. anything more than that seems extremely short cited where we are year-to-date with the city plan this year. it doesn't seem like it is in anyone's interest to draw down

the contingency funds. we started indiana 2017 by millions and recoup in 2020 with the next round of planning. unless there is a very clear plan for 2020 that addresses those kinds of problems, i have a difficult time taking the 42,000 of the stabilization reserves. i thought it was $41,000. >> it says $42,000. do you have a response? >> fantastic comments and observes. i agree about looking at 2020 and beyond, which ties back to president scott's comment about the strategic planning process and actions are clearly needed on this plan to keep it sustainable and viable for 2020 and beyond. there is full recognition that

needs to occur. i know that will guide the process because that ask in clear need. with this presentation we are trying to address ideas to help elements of sustainabilities for the city plan into the 2019 as a first step. i will say this in terms of looking at the population between 2017 and 2018, this $1,661,000 i discuss in a couple slides was created by an infusion of 200 active employees in 2017 into the city plan that were not there in 2016. the use of stabilization reserve money is a 2017 rating. we did include that history in the appendix on the very last

pagena close to $7.6 million was used for the active employees. early retirees received the downstream impact because of the actual difference. that helped to generate a modest increase in absence of any rate stabilization consideration now that we calculate rate differentials between 2018 and 2019. we know from the work that we saw an improved overall risk score in the city plan and most current period versus prior period. we are also trying to come up with a couple ideas that help number one the individuals who have no choice. they are in traffic areas where they don't have kaiser available or don't have blue shield

available or both. we are also trying to recognize that there are rate tiering methods that play very different for early tire refamilies between the city plan and other available plans that we are trying to help bring in balance to support early retiree families. approximately 191 individuals to perhaps try to improve the risk pool of early retiree families in the city plan relative to where it is today because of how it impacts the retire replus one or plus two or more individuals in city plan versus other plans. i say that the basis of the recommendations but i fully acknowledge and agree with your

concerns going into 2020 and beyond. >> thank you. commissioner lim. >> slide 15. i fully support your recommendations except $1,065,000. understanding on the third bullet point, it is mostly benefit $1,065,000 for the benefit of the employer. >> actually it is a way to pay for contribution reductions that occur through these two initiatives. we are basically proposed through a and e that members pay 1 million and $65,000 less in 2019 than they otherwise would have paid without these recommendations. now what does that mean? total cost has not changed. we are changing balance between

retiree and employee and employers. we are just this is a way to help fund the reduction in corn tributions that needs to generate for these members versus what they would pay in 2019 without he's actions. >> it is not going to the employer, it is going to the member? >> the employer woulthe be coven the stabilization reserve. >> net zero cost impact overall, we are moving. this is the mechanism by which to fund the additional $1,065,000 incurred by the employers with a direct corresponding reduction in contributions versenos action for those applicable employees and early retirees.

>> questions? >> i have concern about the 100 out of -- 1100 using out of network providers. they probably have serious reasons for doing it, i would guess. >> i would state there is a valuable benefit out of network benefit available. we have simply saying that we feel the deductible should increase to reflect services are more expensive out of network we are talking about overall $500 deductible for a single up to family then co-insurance kicks in. >> still only paying 50% out of network. >> they are only going to pay 50% put increase. double it. i mean that is unaffordable for

a lot of people. >> other questions, comments? >> we list the recommendations on 16 and 17. today we have the health service board to consider the possible actions to approve the five recommendations i have discussed. creating a separate plan for the city plan enrollees with limited plan choice due to geography. i illustrate the rating impact for those individuals later in this presentation. the lower overall plan cost uhc provider with no adverse impact on members, change for prescription drugs to match blue shield, increase out of network deductibles and the rate ratios for the city plan early retirees.

to consider a and e on page 17, it would require an action to suspend the stabilization reserve policy by health service board because we are recommending the application of $1,065,000 of that remaining $1,107,000 rate stabilization balance, it would require a one-time suspension of the self funded stabilization reserve policy to enact our recommendations a and e. >> are there any questions until. >> no further questions. i am ready to entertain a motion. >> i would move to approve items a through e on page 16. >> moved to approve items a

through e on page 16 as recommended and reviewed. >> second. >> there is a second to that motion. any discussion? >> quick question. can rate cards you have on the next few pages including the $1,065,000. >> correct. >> it would be nice if there is a rate card without the use of the $1,065,000 so we could see the impact of that. >> i will allow you to derm i could walk the board through the status quo with changes. >> yes. [please stand by]

>> all right.by] if so, are there any other comments or questions on the pending motion? is there any public comment? hearing, seeing no public comment, we are going to take a roll call vote -- oh, we do have public comment. sorry. if you don't move, you lose, but we'll always come back to public comment, always. >> try making this -- >> please get the microphone down and please state your name. >> maureen shea. retired. i hope i'm making this comment at the appropriate time, but i

do feel, in listening to what has transpired, although it seems greek to me because i don't attend many of these hearings. it seems to me that this alternate plan, this medicare advantage hasn't really benefited many of the members of the plan, the early retirees, etcetera. i have some concerns about the medicare advantage coverage for rehabilitative services. i was, one, in the city plan for many, many years, found it met my needs beautifully. medicare advantage, i'm still -- i have been very fortunate that i haven't needed medical services during the past year extensively. i certainly don't think that

medicare advantage is meeting the needs of the participants in the same manner as the previous health plan did. so i support what commissioner breslin has recommended and possible opening up the city plan, one, to all retirees as it was before. >> thank you for your comment. is there any other public comment? >> herbert weiner. i am concerned about the gradual erosion of the city plan. i am concerned about being gradually phased out. presently, we only have two alternatives as retirees, either united health or kaiser. and as alluring as united health seems, there are little dope traps. like, when you have lab tests, you have to pay for them, and

emergency room services are higher than before, $15 more. and what i'm afraid of, you're looking at a duopoly, where you have two choices, and essentially they're going to be the same. i like the idea of bringing back the city plan for everyone. i would like to see that because it's more competition, and more competition means that we get greater benefits. it also means that the employer gets good benefits out of it, too. so i have to admit that i don't keep up with the complexities of what has been presented. i -- it -- basically, i'll have to go back and get an mba to understand it. but at the same time, i get a general gist that there's a potential phasing out of the city plan, and i think this is very dangerous.

thank you. >> thank you for your comment. is there other public comment? >> good afternoon, commissioners. this has been a very painful and very difficult process, and i've tried to look this over very carefully. and again, we're talking about non-medicare early retirees, and their availability on plan one, including the active -- there's also the actives that have no choice. there's other alternatives for them. the problem i have is the prescription drug copayments and the out of network deductibles. i remember very, very long and difficult discussions about the out of network deductibles and why we actually ended up making them the same as the

in-network, and i think basically we found there was no big difference in terms of costs and people were going out of network any way because a lot of that has to do with specialists and people -- and other providers that they may be referred to for other kinds of treatment. the problems i have with a through e are c and d. those increases, if you're increasing premiums and then you're also changing the drug copayments, and while it doesn't seem like a lot, you know, it's $5, it is a lot because early retirees, just like those of us that might be on medicare end up with various health kinds of problems, and their prescription costs are high. and when you start adding $5 or more perprescription, it starts to add up significantly, and people are then having to choose how they're going to live, if they're going to get their prescriptions or not, and that's where i have the problem. because even with early

retirees, and especially with early retirees, they don't retire at the full rates, and a lot of them are on much more restricted income than those who might have retired a little later, and many of them retire early because many of them have problems, they have physical problems or medical problems that have forced them to retire early. so in many ways, they're a disadvantaged group. so my problems are c and d and to see if there's some way you can work that out to reexamine what you're doing with city plan and keep the prescription copayments and the deductibles the same, i think that would be much more beneficial to our members. thank you -- the early retirees. >> thank you for your comments. is there any other public comment? >> just trying to see the difference -- >> any other public comment. >> excuse me. >> any comment -- further comments from the board at this

point? >> just trying to look at the note. without the changes, the difference in the price without the changes, and with the changes... >> so we talked about the 3.8% out of your rate increase. all three b, c, and d would take that down to a 1% increase. if we were to eliminate c and d actuarially, we would be looking at a 2% increase. i'm looking at, for instance, slides nine through 12, and i know i'm stating information to you that is not in the presentation. >> sorry. >> but when i look at the financial impact -- so, for instance, on slide ten -- let's go to slide 15, actually. >> slide 15? >> because we can see it altogether.

so when you add the two numbers for b, 685,000, add the two numbers for c, 290,000, add the two numbers for d, 33,000. so there was more of an impact on b than c and d. >> there's, like, a $200 difference for an early retiree, $200 less. >> so if i can go to slide -- i'm going to go to slide 30. >> oh, yeah, i was just looking at that. >> slide 30? >> so slide 30 summarizes the projected monthly employee and retiry contributions, so what the member pays for 2018. so that's py'ed 2018.

that's what's now in place. 29, sq, is status quo. if you made none of the changes that we've presented today, these would be the contributions for 2019 for the participant on a monthly basis. 2019 with changes that would apply to the existing city plan, so applying b, c, d, and e, so this is where you see the benefit of the implementation of the network change, b, the deductible change, d, and the copayment change, c, that's the difference in the rates between 2019 sq, status quo, and 2019 with changes with the added layer of benefit of e to the last two columns: the early

retiree plus one, early retiree plus two or more. and then, finally, you see 2019 cp-cna, so that is the city plan choice not available. the separate plan that we've talked about in recommendation a for the 73 active employees and 436 early retirees who do not have access to all plans, they would pay the same as what was earlier approved today that the blue shield access plus participants pay. so page 30 is early retiree. the next page, 31, is for the

196 83. >> questions from the board regarding proposed motion that is on the floor, which is to approve the recommendations a through e as outlined on page 16 of the presentation? >> page 33. >> and on page 33 -- further explained on page 33? hearing and seeing no further comment, we're now ready to vote. we will take a roll call vote on this activity, please, secretary. [ro [voting] >> thank you. >> the motion carries

unanimously. i'm now ready to entertain a motion on the action that is proposed on page 17. is there a motion? hearing and seeing no motion, there is no action to be taken on the item on page 17, and so we will need to go back and recalculate the rate impact of that for the city plan increases for 2019. >> yes. >> all right. >> so what would be the -- what would be applied to it if we just used the regular rate, not -- not buying it this much

down? it would be one-third, right? >> so the 2019 status quo rose on pages 30 and 31, no changes, 554,000 applied perpolicy to 2019 rating. >> so -- >> what's your balance -- >> so if we don't suspend the stablization policy then the rates that we think we voted on just now aren't really the rates. and that assumed we suspended the -- >> hold on, the rates. >> we're doubling the rates. >> we're voting on the proposals. >> proposals. [inaudible] >> the rate cards that are contained in the presentation

contain stable -- all the recommendations being incorporated. so what will be brought back to us in june since we did not choose to apply the recommendation as contained on that page 16 would be recalculated rate cards, and we'll see the magnitude of increase resulting from that. >> okay. >> now, also, the actuary, michael clark, was pointing out that we can see some of that impact already by looking at pages 30 and 31, where it says 2019 status quo, sq. those would be the rates. so the employee rate is going to go -- or if they're retiree rate will go from 117-64 in the 93-83 from 117 to 232, and you can read the rest of the table,

by not applying or suspending the rate stablization. >> so if i may -- >> yes. >> page 30? >> page 30. >> so the status quo represents the combination of page 19, where we say an absence of stablization adjustments, the rates go up as illustrated on page 19. and then, the very last row of page 21, which is the policy application of one-third of the december 20 -- or 31, 2017, rate stablization fund balance, $1,661,000. the funding is one-third that amount. so my understanding is that's what you voted, and this is the status quo scenario. the combination of our page 19 and page 21 commentary.

>> status quo is what you are applying here, a through e. >> so when we apply the a through e, that is where we get the change rates that are on 30 and 31. >> okay. then go to 30 and 31 again. >> and then a specifically creates the fourth row, the 2019 cp-cna or city plan choice not available. i think the question, then, is the application of the $1,065,000 that was attributed to pay for a and e. >> so the rate would change

from 2018 for the request single retiree 117 to either -- to $218 or $232. >> so with a through e approved, it would change to 218.42. >> all right. so it's a $100 increase. >> and then, for those 73 -- i'm sorry, 436 early retirees, they would pay $100.26. >> i understand, but i'm just saying given the actions that we've taken today, i just want the board to realize we have the numbers in front of us. all that's going to come back to us next month is a straight rate card without any of this detail. so we have the data in front of us now, and i just want everyone to be very clear as to where we are. so we're saying the current rate for the retirees are shown

in py-2018, retiree, retiree plus one, retiree plus two. >> not necessarily, because the one with 2019 with change -- >> it doesn't -- >> no, i want to be clear with what i just stated. i said we see in plan year 2018, the top line, what the rates are for current -- that we're currently paying, that these early retirees are currently paying. the subsequent lines are illustrating what happens if we did nothing. >> understood. >> okay. the next line is a through e, is that correct, that -- >> but that includes plus stablization. >> is it plus stablization? >> yes. >> yes. >> yes. >> so these are the rates that do include the application of

strategies of a and e. >> yes. >> yes. >> plus b, c, and d, but necessarily hasn't been discussed, then, in absence of the spending stablization policy is the $1,065,000 of additional employer money to enact a and e. if it's not then applied for by the stablization moneys, that, i would view, as an open question still. >> yeah. the rate is going to be higher at some level if we don't use the full stablization recommendation, correct? >> the employer spend will be higher. >> the employer spend will be higher. all right. so what we will see next month is tables developed without the use of stablization based on

our action today. >> okay. so just as an illustrative example, the third row versus the fourth row, so 73 employees and 436 retiries who live in areas without any other selection, that's about a $118 permonth difference. so the person living outside of california, based on the approval of a, is going to pay $100.26. so we've created city plan choice not available with rates -- retiree contributions that are the same as for the blue shield access plus minus. what now hasn't been determined

is that person would have otherwise paid $218.48. how does that extra $118 perretiree only get funded? so if it's not funded by application the remaining rate stablization reserve moneys, the open question is how does that become funded? >> well, the action of the board today is saying you shouldn't use the rate stablization money. and as a result, you're going to come up with a rate for early retirees that is going to be substantially higher in that category, by my lights, unless i'm missing some math here. >> yeah. so if i could clarify, mike, stop me if that sounds really bad. but in the past, the votes have been let's use additional funds to directly buydown the rates as a pass through, and so the

rates would actually change, contributions may go up or down. what you've created in a through e, you've created a new plan which is in essence going to be cheaper out of area, and it's going to funnel for subsidy, more dollars are going to go to early retirees based on the charter. so you've introduced new cost, new subsidy for the out of area plan and reduced contributions, so that's a win. but the new cost has now been introduced by adding the plan. the mechanics of the charter are going to dictate that. and so the question is if we're introducing about $1 million of employer cost, you let that just flow through to the employers naturally through the charter. or because you have $1 million of unused stablization, do you say we voted to access this cost. we're going to vote to cover it.

it is you've introduced a new cost, so do you want to cover that cost or let it flow through to the employers naturally. >> no. say your premium is still 1,000. you buydown that 1,000 with the rate stablization of, say, $10. that becomes 190. for retirees, it won't make any difference because it actually reduces the rates because you still have the ten county survey. the difference is the retiree subsidy, but by paying it down, it's the employer who will be paying for it. not the retiree. >> all right. i'm just saying that we need to be clear so that our actuary's clear when he comes back here, and apparently we are here. somehow, the employer is going to pick up the $1 million based

on what we just approved. >> so if you think about it, claims don't change through what we've talked about with a and e. they do for b, c, and d, but they don't -- we're not impacting total health care spend with a and e. what we've done is we've suppressed the contributions that certain members will pay in 2019 for a and e relative to what they would have otherwise paid without it. >> got -- got that. and without the subsequent use of stablization funds, there is an overall increased cost to this plan, and it is left to the employer to absorb the rest. >> that is correct. >> all right. so that's what i want on the record today. all right. >> okay. i just want a clarification. it isn't that we're not going to use any of the reserve, because we would normally use, like, one-third, which is

554,000, we're not going to use all the reserve. >> correct. we're applying one-third perpolicy. >> so out of the 1.6. >> 554 -- >> so we've got $1 million we still have in the stablization reserve, and i look forward to the conversations next year around how to use that, rather than 42,000. all right. thank you very much, mike. this has been more than enlightening. >> thank you. >> thank you. all right. >> no way, they're going to sub. >> director yant? >> time to get out of here? >> no. i would beg the board to sit one more item on the actuarial consulting item, please, so we can stick to our timeline. >> a line item's been called for regarding the actuarial

services selection, and that is in our regular board meeting. >> yes. >> all right. that's where we are. >> okay. item 12, discussion and possible action, request to approve ai consulting, inc to provide actuarial and consulting services to the health services board and health system in services resulting from the health selection process. executive director yant. >> yes, please. >> thank you. and given the hour, i will be very brief and pamela will walk us through the process that we use to make the recommendation today to approve aon consulting. as you know, you tasked me with this job when i was hired, so we're delivering, i believe, on time, and it's been a highly educational and highly professional endeavor that we have taken, so let me have pamela walk you through the steps and hear any questions that you might have. >> okay. thank you. >> pamela levin, chief

financial officer, health services system. i have with me our contracts manager who's sitting down at this point. >> and he is? >> he is michael visconti. he has an injured leg. >> i saw him hobble to the front, and i'm hoping it wasn't a result of this rfp process. >> he didn't have to kick anybody. >> thank goodness it happened the night after the selection. >> that's fine. no details. >> so it's recommended that the health service board approve ratify and award the contract award to aon consulting to provide actuarial consulting services to the san francisco health board and the san francisco health system and authorize hssf to provide with the negotiation of the contract with aon. aon received the highest score from an evaluation panel that consisted of city managers, two of them from the office of the

controller, two from the health service system, and one from the san francisco employee retirement system. in terms of the rfp, the hfp requires respondents to confirm several new conditions and contractual requirements, including the following: detailed provisions regarding consent to re assign personnel at the request of hssf, restriction on request of performing services concurrently for other city departments, comprehensive transition planning prior to contract termination, heightened performance guarantees, and a thorough preemptive legal review of a new form that the city is using effective 2017. in terms of the selection process, we issued the rfp on february 8, and the

preproposal meeting and conference call was held on the 21 of february . ten individuals, including prospective actuaries from five actual firms participated. questions were submitted from five firms and an addendum was issued on march 9. proposals were received on march 23 from deloit consulting, llp, dickerson employee benefits, inc, willers, towers, watson, and aon consulting, inc. hssf staff first reviewed the proposals for minimum qualifications. all four written proposals were submitted to the evaluation panel for review and scoring. all four firms participated in oral interviews, where they responded to two hypothetical scenarios. the scores were then combined with the