>> the meeting is being recorded. president heldfond, you may begin the retirement board meeting of november 8, 2023 at this time. >> thank you. madam-would you call the roll recollect , please? [roll call] >> commissioner safai is on his way. >> thank you. commissioner bridges is on her way. commissioner driscoll. >> present. >> thank you, we do have a quorum. >> great. call the first item, please. >> item 2, communications. we welcome to the public participation during public comment period. there will be a opportunity for general public comment at this meeting after closed session and there will be a opportunity

to comment on each discussion or action item on the agenda. each comment is limited to two minutes. public comment will be taken in person and remotely by call in. for each item the board will take public comment first from those in person and then remotely. comments are opportunities to speak during the public comment period are available by phone by calling 415-655-0001 access code 26602568482 #, #. when connected you will hear meeting discussion and muted in listening mode. when your item of interest comes up, press * 3. best practice call from quite location, speak clearly and slowly and turn down the tv or

radio. city policy along with federal, state and local law prohibit discriminatory or harassing conduct against sitdy employees and others during public meeting and will not be tolerated. moreoverpublic comment is permitted on matters within the jurisdiction of the meeting body. we thank you for joining us. >> thank you. madam secretary, can you call the next item, please? >> item 3, closed session. conference with legal counsel, existing litigation. >> okay. before moving into closed session, we'll take a vote to invoke the attorney/client privilege to go into closed session for the pending litigation discussion. is there a motion? >> so moved. >> second. >> been moved and seconded. madam secretary, can you call for public comment? >> yes. we have no in person public

comment on this item. reminder to callers to please press * 3 to be added to the queue. moderator, do we have callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no calls, public comment is now closed. >> great. motion is made and seconded. all those in favor say, aye. >> aye. >> those opposed? hearing none, we will now leave open session and proceed to closed session, which probably won't take >> president heldfond, we are recording. you may resume open session at this time. >> can you call--do we need to do roll call first in open session? >> sure. calling roll call, commissioner

o'connor, present. commissioner thomas, -commissioner thomas, roll call. >> present. sorry. >> commissioner safai, present. president heldfond, present. commissioner driscoll, present. a quorum is present. >> thank you. is there a motion to disclose or not disclose--? [indiscernible] >> i move not to disclose closed session. >> great. >> second. >> okay. madam secretary, you want to open-- >> do we have public comment on this item? seeing none, reminder to callers to press * 3 to be added to the queue. moderator, do we have callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are

no callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no calls, public comment is now closed. >> it has been moved and seconded. all in favor say aye. >> aye. >> those opposed? hearing none, move-call the next item, please. >> item 4, general public comment. reminder public comment is limited to two minutes. do we have in person public comment? seeing none, callers, please press * 3 to be added to the queue. moderator, any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, we have one caller on the line. >> thank you. caller, please state your name, your two minutes begin when you speak. >> my name is [indiscernible] last name is mcpherson and here again this month to remind you that the san francisco retirement system is the worst system in the state. maybe even in the nation for

taking care of its disabled retirees. i applied for a [indiscernible] one week shy of 31 months ago and yet to receive any information from you regarding my hearing coming up. it is all-[indiscernible] was told it was would take 12 months. whether i inquired at 13 months they said it will take up to 2 years and 2 years came up, 2 years plus. we are coming up on all most 3 years so yet to hear. i want to let you know again, you are 5 times slower then the average retirement system in the state as far as processing these applications and you are twice as long or more then twice as long as the second worst retirement system. i just want to let you know that and keep that in mind because that should be a priority.

you don't have enough people you need to hire more people. you can't do 6 or 7 every month and get to a list of don't know how many there are [indiscernible] not told how many are son on the list. i was in the top 60 a few months ago but there is only been 16 people that have gotten their hearings in the time i was told i was in the top 60, so i can go little over 3 years so you need to do something about that for your retirees. thank you. >> thank you for your call. moderator, do we have further callers on the line? >> madam secretary, no other callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no calls, public comment is closed. >> madam secretary, you want to call item number 5? >> item 5. approval of the minutes of the october 11, 2023 retirement

board meeting. >> move to approve the minutes. >> thank you. is there a second? >> second. >> okay. can you call for public comment madam secretary? >> we have no in person public comment on this item. moderator, any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, no callers on the line. >> thank you no calls, public comment is is closed. >> it has been moved and seconded. all in favor say aye. >> aye. >> those opposed? okay . madam secretary, next item. >> item 6, action item, consent calendar. >> is there a motion to approve the consent calendar? >> i happy to make the motion, but i like to briefly state--i went to a training at the training colleagues overover

the last month on the agenda item and one of the things in it was module 1 and 2 of the credited fiduciary training. i highly recommend it. one of the best trainings i have done. i want to shout out as a really good training and thank staff to partake in that and move to adopt consent. >> thank you and appreciate the comments and should all probably take more advantage of the work staff does to present the opportunities to go to these conferences. it has been moved and seconded. all in favor say aye. >> aye. >> opposed? call the next item, please. >> item 7, action item. this item was continued from october 11, 2023 retirement board meeting. approve the- >> can we hold off a quick second? who gave the second on the last

motion? >> i thought- >> it has been seconded. >> [indiscernible] >> i'll second it. >> approve amendment to purchase public services policy. >> board members, this was continued from last month. you may recall the board of supervisors several months ago passed an amendment to the public service ordinance, which permitted members to apply for and purchase u.s. military leave prior to the time they became members of sfers. in order to implement, we needed to update the public service policy and that is what you have before you, including some cleanup language since it

has been quite some time since we have reviewed it. happy to answer any questions at any of you may have. >> any questions? >> quick question. so, with the current language you are proposing will go into effect immediately? >> absolutely. >> okay. that's most important. >> if you pass it today, we are ready to post the updated application purchase policy and faq and respond to the many members who have contacted us and expressed interest. >> i know you have a back-log and why i asked the question. >> we do. we are ready. >> thank you mr. chair. >> any further questions, comments? >> two comments. a lot of phone calls and interest since this passed by the board of supervisors many months ago.

i just know that the communication to the members who are going to be very interested in deciding to take advantage of this benefit has been great because there is more information besides what is written in the policy when it gets down to the level where members can understand and apply and execute. the coordination with the cbso is very valuable to us to make the process go smoother and faster. verifying you have the service is what takes time, so fix from the other policy or the current policy is wise and very shall be much appreciated by the members. the other footnote, this issue may come up in a couple years because there was a very small group of members unfortunately not included because of the way they joined the retirement system soif we are table to include those 3 or 4 people the

issue may come up again because we are trying to as open and helpful to all members who work for city and county of san francisco. thank you. >> thank you. >> commissioner, before you vote, i would like to state for the record--iment to thank the veteran service office for helping us, because to implement this and get it ready to present to the members has been quite a challenge. since we are unfamiliar with the military pension process and they have been extremely helpful and continue to be and they will be helpful going forward, so i did want to state on the record how grateful for their assistance helping us prepare this policy and implementation faq. thank you. >> so noted. if you pleased and thankful, we are too. could we have a motion, please? >> move to adopt the policy as

amended. >> second? >> second. >> been moved and seconded. you want to call public comment? >> we have no in person public comment on this item. reminder to callers, press * 3 to be added to the queue. moderator, are there any callers? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> thank you. no callers. public comment is closed. >> moved and seconded. all in favor say aye. >> aye. >> those opposed? motion passes. want to call item number 8? >> item 8, discussion item. governance committee report. >> item 9 which follows cover most of what was accomplished at the governance committee meeting. the other item may not clearly

show up here is the coordination between board education and staff education was a issue i raised, particularly on it issue of improving our decision process. that is also will be working on over the next couple years. the training schedule goes that far out. again, we also one term of reference change and one policy change which are covered in item 9. >> since this is a discussion item, should we just segue into 9? >> public comment first. >> everybody approve that? okay. let's have public comment on 8 and then go right into 9. >> thank you. we have no in person public comment on this item. moderator, any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, no callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no calls, public comment is now closed. item 9, action. revision to board policies.

>> had to do it once. commissioners, as commissioner driscoll noted in the governance committee meeting we reviewed two policies which they recommended to bring before the full board for approval. first is the undo influence policy. this simply hadn't been in the batch of policies that we had updated earlier this year, so the intent is to revise that to bring it up to-to make it consistent with the other policy changes. the second was amending the operating oversight committee terms of reference. in may of 2021 before i joined the operating oversight committee approved changes to the terms of reference to add additional responsibilities which i think has a lot of merit to review strategic planning, data security, quality assurance project and it issues. they had approved it, but it

had not made it before the governance committee or full board, so pulling through what is approved by the operation oversight committee. those are the two policies before you and the red lines are in the materials. i'm happy to answer any questions you may have. >> you have any comments on the item? joe? >> no. >> joe, you have any comments on this item? >> not on 9, no. >> that would be [indiscernible] okay. any--can we have a motion, please? >> move adoption of change of term of reference and undue influence policy. >> second. >> want to call public comment

madam secretary? >> yes. we have no in person public comment on this item. moderator, are there callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no calls, public comment is now closed. >> okay. let's have-been moved and seconded. all in favor say aye. >> aye. >> those opposed? call number 10, please. >> item 10, action item. board education plan. >> commissioners, discussed in prior meetings i have the responsibility along with our governance consultant ashley dunning joining remotely to conduct a annual bio education needs assessment and develop a board education plan. thank you to all who responded to our survey so we could conduct that assessment. we presented to the governance committee the result of the survey and put forward a board education plan and to be consistent with the way we are

working with committees where committees do the work and we bring forward the recommendation from the committee, i will focus today on the board education plan, the full presentation to the committee is behind that in the materials with the results of the survey. i wasn't planning to go through that, but if there are any questions please let me know and ashley again is online to address questions as well. with respect to the board education plan, i'll hit the highlights. so, if we could go to the next slide? we design around the areas of focus that the policy identified as important and then you the board has prioritized in terms where you are interested to learn more. decision making, fiduciary responsibility, pension fund investment, dc plan risk management and funding matters. all the items below are important, but the 6 i mentioned were the ones you prioritized. with that in mind and the input

on all the questions in our survey we developed a board education plan the governance committee supported turning to the next slide--what we propose that to entail in 2024 a half day session. off set session where we cover topics on governance and decision quality. invest. market and fiduciary duties and actuarially funding. we'll continue as we have doing fiduciary training in board meetings and making an effort to continue to include investment topics in ic meetings. we have one on the calendar this spring planned. we follow in 2025 with a half day off site educational workshop and there cover the other topics you highlighted as important. ing dc plan, risk management and global market trends. those the official events we would put forward. in addition to that, moving to

the next slide--we will continue to refine our on-boarding and training of new trustees. we will focus on the monthly training calendar to make sure we include where we find them available more remote learning opportunities so webinars or sessions you can attend remotely and be efficient with your time and make sure you are aware of those, and also look for a broader set of conferences. commissioner thomas, thank you for your comments earlier. that was a nice segue into the training we put together in the report each month ceo survey, but i want to continue to encourage board members to attend conferences. as you recall in the travel and education policy, board members encouraged to attend at least one conference a year, 5 hours of content and overall a year 8 hours of training. there is great information in the ceo report and if you have

questions on any of the trainings i'm happy to answer those. that is the short and sweet summary of the education plan and again, the result of the survey are behind that. i open it up to the commissioners for any questions that you may have. >> i just want to also point out that one nice sign of the high quality of consultants we have,b it is frequent when i go to training seminars another the staff or sometimes ashley are key presenters presenting on the subject matter expertise so good to see that we got a big depth of talent supporting to the point where other pensions are coming to take advice from them. i like to move to adopt the board education plan. >> i second. >> madam secretary, you-any

other comments? thank you. madam secretary, you want to ask for public comment? >> thank you. we have no in person public comment on this item. moderator, do we have any callers on the line? callers, if you have not done so, press * 3 to be added to the queue. moderator, do we have any callers on the line? we have no callers on the line. public comment is now closed. >> thank you. been moved and seconded. those in favor say aye. >> aye. those opposed? great. thanks for that work.

so, you want to call 11, please? >> item 11, action. consideration of remote public comment. >> okay. i want to say a-in my due diligence in terms how to approach this item, i did my own personal due diligence, and i changed it. actually, i'll tell you why. i got a number of calls this morning and which is good. i'm always welcome to calls, and all commissioners should, but commissioner safai said something that really resinated with me and changed my position. i'm not against-i wasn't against it, i just in balancing how we our position as the retirement system and how i see

the retirement-we see the retirement system as a entity with a balance sheet and whole thing, i thought this was maybe not the item to fall out of the ranks with the city. however, in talking to a number of commissioners, there was-there seemed to be a preference to stay the course as it is. i'm now staying the course. i'm going to recommend we stay the course as it is, because commissioner safai reminded me that our constituency is spread far and wide. they are retirees and may be in europe or asia so that one fact-i'm going to-any discussion i might have had with any of you, i'm changing my position. >> thank you president heldfond.

as somebody that sits on the board of supervisors and had the debate quite extensively, unfortunately we removed remote public comment recently as a result of a lot of-triggered by tremendous amount of hate speech coming in in a organized fashion from all over the country, and it was not just targeting san francisco. we are on a volume public comment that is very different then here, and so we have the mechanism for people to write e-mails, show up in person, visit us, to see us at events, to dm on social media, post-there are so many ways for people to express themselves and let it be known their position. this body is very different and it really struck home to me and know i'm one of the people that said, in terms of the arguments of it the overall economy i believe returning to the office in a balanced way respecting

people's live, work, life is very important, but for this body, when you see people that have to fly in from virginia for example to just get on the docket to present public comment for a investment we have, or in the past individuals have come up laid off from toys r us. it doesn't seem fair in the technology and investments we have all over the world. we should be able to use public comment. that is what we said at the board. not saying you have to do remote public comment for every or stop it for every entity, our body as i said has many mechanisms to present, but for this body i think it is important we keep remote public comment and then as president heldfond said, a lot of retirees live all over the world and that is just the nature of having a $33 billion

plus investment fund. >> [indiscernible] >> it keeps going up. anyway, you understand the argument, so i want to be clear because i said things in the past, felt very strongly about it and we have been able to implement that at the board of supervisors. we leave the door open for changes in the future, but for this body i think it is important we have remote public comment, so i will be voting to maintain remote public comment in this setting. thank you. and are thank you president heldfond for listening to my position. >> thank you for your comments. i'm sure--any other comments on this? >> no. mr. president, i concur with the sentiment because we have retirees all over and they are global and some really cannot because of disabilities cannot come in, so we have to keep

that in mind because people have different challenges whereby they can't come in to make public comment, so i think it is important we meet them where they are and provide the services that are needed. >> i would just like to interject. if you do end remote public comment, it would still be available to persons with disabilities who apply. >> right. >> in my mind, we all use--this item will present itself over the next year, 2 years as we all come back to work and redefine how we operate, how we do business and the like, so i think this is the first step. >> just want to echo comments made . i think the impact on meetings and progress is minimal and

given the unique role of retirees as stakeholders in the system we are disscussing it is very important to provide an opportunity for them to comment in a manner that seems to be working so far. i am sympathetic to the discussion just had regarding providing remote presentation for certain investments. we need to do that as a function of the type of body we are and affording commenters the same sort of privilege of remote comments as we do investment presentation or consultants seems reasonable at this time. to what commissioner-president heldfond said, this is dynamic environment, something we are consistently looking at and revisiting so good we keep an eye on it and happy to hear that other areas within san francisco are also updating policy so i appreciate staff bringing this before us, but

will likely vote as well for continue with current practice. >> comment. there is a cost and value to maintain as transparent as possible and open and democratic meeting process. we have high expectations when managers or general partners when we want to talk to them, we expect them to listen to us. it goes on the other side as well, to maintain our comments for members whom we have a duty to serve, if this is the way with remote access gives the confidence to support us as well as listen to what we do and how we make our decisions, then it is reasonable cost to achieve the value that appears are apparent to everybody. thank you. >> i want to put in something paraenthetical. this is only one item in the concept how we do our business,

and ceo romano and i have been talking with various stakeholders, various organizations in the city to try to balance out where we are working and how they are working and that involves a good portion of how [indiscernible] comes to see us. where we are located and the like. this is just the tip of the iceberg. stay tuned. any further comment? if not, do you want open up public comment, please? >> we have no in person public comment on this item. reminder to callers to press * 3 to be added to the queue. moderator, any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, we have one caller on the line. >> thank you. caller, please state your name. your two minutes begin when you speak. >> hello. my name is fred sanchez, the

president of protect our benefits. the comments been made so far are very encouraging. just seeing that ashley du is standing by remotely so she can answer questions is a perfect example on why the retirement system is so unique and yes they have retirees all over the world and they have investments all over the world, so taking the tool out of your tool box at this time really doesn't make sense. i applaud you once again, that is why i continue to praise the retirement system board as one of the best run departments in not only the city and county of san francisco, but in the state and in the nation. it is a outstanding retirement system. i hope that you will all vote

unanimously to maintain remote public comment and i thank you all. >> thank you for your call. modraert, do we have any further callers? >> madam secretary, no callers on the line. >> public comment is now closed. >> we have a motion to continue as we are today. >> i move that we continue our current process with remote access for members and beneficiaries. >> second. >> okay. we have-sorry, i put public comment. anyhow, moved and seconded. all in favor say aye. >> aye. >> actually--let's do roll call

vote, please. >> connor, aye. thomas, aye. safai, aye. heldfond, aye. driscoll, aye. bridges, aye. thank you, we have 6 ayes. motion passes. >> thanks. we want to call item 12, please? >> item 12, discussion item. chief executive officer's report. >> commissioners, in my report you find the standards items that are there every quarter, including the forward calendar and the list of available training i referenced earlier to highlight on the forward calendar we have a upcoming personnel committee meeting december 6 that i coordinate with that committee shortly. also have the quarterly travel expense report and karen will discuss the q3 management

operation dashboard. >> as you know each quarter we provide you with a snapshot of the retirement services work during the quarter. you have that before you. i did want to point out that we have been working with the city attorney's office in order to flesh out the disability retirement applications and where they all stand at a certain point in time, and this month or this quarter, we have actually discovered when we were drilling down on the status of some of these that there are quite a few in excess of 50 that are dormant and i'll explain that in a second and we have been carrying about 18 that have been counseled. let's start with the easy ones.

over the course of i guess during covid, we had applications that the members or themselves or calpers canceled and we did not remove them from our books, so since those are no longer pending, we will remove them at the end of this meeting we wanted to tell you that as of right now we have been carrying them on the books and so we will have removed those 18. the dormant applications are more complicated. those are cases and some may recall started the project started before the covid shut-down where we were going through cases, some over 10 years old that nothing has happened inspite of our trying to find them, so we were in the process of going through them and we were going to make

recommendations to the board to dismiss some of them without prejudice, and with covid that lack of staff we did not move forward, but we wanted to present to you that we have about 51 of those. many of those were already evaluated prior to the shut-down so work ing with the city attorney's office we are going to present to you in the next months a process we hope you will approve where we can dismiss without prejudice and happy to answer any questions. >> two questions. you then see that it would be a communication to that applicant? about their case. we are going to close it or file? >> we can do it--if understand,

they told us that they are not pursuing it and we just didn't remove it from our books. >> there are cases where we voted to just close it case, but without them sacrificing their right to come back and apply. >> that is different. the canceled cases are situations where the member themselves or calpers has notified us that the applications have been for intensive purposes withdrawn. >> this other i remember we occasionally see--the dormant thing there is something we drop the case load without them sacrificing their right is what i'm not understanding? >> the dormant cases are cases where nothing has happened. despite efforts on our part to move the case along. we are working with the city attorney's office and reviewing

what mr. mcguire and mrs. millen worked on before the shut-down and we will come up with a process that we will present to you where we will request that these cases that have not been moved will be dismissed without prejudice and absolutely, there will be a notification to the last known address for the member and some of the cases the people are gone. cecilia, sure you have something to add. >> that is what i was going to add. you covered it. >> it is effort to communicate to the member. thank you for adding the further breakdown--waiting hearing. that means applicant and representative as well as the city, they both sides filed the readiness to proceed, correct? >> yes, and we are coordinating to get a hearing date. >> maybe it is seasonal why the

number climbed the last two months. looking at the case count and notice the name of the judges is there a bottleneck there of the availability of judges? >> i can't speak to the last couple months. i can say and again you can chime in, there are occasions when the hearing officers are-their resources are directed to what considered something more urgent, and so for some months they are focused on that and so we have fewer hearings, but do you have a answer? >> i was going to say, at present we have the right number of hearing officers and hearing slots, but certainly if we have more cases going to hearing we could explore getting additional ones, but i think we do have the right number at this time. if they are waiting hearing and it will be set, maybe set a

couple months out, but we do have enough slots for everybody. >> and to your point and maybe unclear here is awaiting hearing also includes casus set for hearing and just have not been heard yet. it isn't just we are working to get a date, but fair number of these already have a hearing date. >> the analogy isn't to the pacing of cash flow, but when i see the number going up i wonder is it seasonal issue because of retirement or is there couple judges that had longer cases. i'll watch the number but see it rising it usually indicates a different resource or different priority issue from 16 to 31. if it goes down, great. >> we are processing more quickly so that is why there are more. >> okay. again, the first time i have seen the numbers this way.

looking for that progress. goes to issue how well and quickly able to serve the members. thank you. >> that was all i had for the ceo report. >> any questions? comments? discussion item, and so let's do public comment, please. >> thank you. we have no in person public comment on this item. moderator, do we have any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no calls, public comment is now closed. >> great. do you want to call item 13? >> item 13, discussion item. deferred compensation committee report.

>> [indiscernible] >> can you please turn on your mic. >> it is on. is it not? thank you mr. chair and madam secretary. the deferred compensation committee met on october 4. you have the report in front of you. out of the meeting we are forwarding to the board two items for recommending two items to vote on and approve. those two items will have a subsequent discussion in the next few items and callan will present the full presentation but the two items forwarding to you is to approve the vanguard cash reserves money market fund as underlying investment for the target date funds and the second item we are forwarded for approval is move the [indiscernible] smp500 index

and north [indiscernible] index fund and to the low cost cit. you will be receiving those today and full recommendations hence forth. in addition we discussed as we-outlined in my report, the active large cap fund and manager report and i like to commend mrs. justin and her team along with our ceo and executive director giving us comprehensive research and working with callan to come up with these recommendations forwarding today. thank you to you and your team and callan for all the hard work so thank you and that ends my report. >> thank you. is there any questions for commissioner bridges? if not, this was discussion item. public comment, please.

>> thank you. no in person public comment on the item. modraert, moderator, do we have callers on the line? >> madam secretary, no callers on the line. >> thank you. public comment is now closed. >> before i call the next item, commissioners do you want to grab lunch and bring it back and do it here? take a maybe 10 minute break right now? that good? alright. madam secretary, we'll do 10 minutes. >> there you >> back in order, please and do a roll call. >> this meeting is resuming. roll call. commissioner o'connor, present. commissioner thomas, present. commissioner safai, present. president heldfond, present.

commissioner driscoll, present. commissioner bridges, present. a quorum is present. >> great. i are will-i guess not apologize, but we are make practice of efficiency to eat while we're--what we should do is what the supervisors do. do you still have your bull pin where you go sit out and eat? >> they don't provide us food. we don't get food unless we stay late. >> can we call the next item? >> 14, action item. sfdcp money market fund recommendation. >> thank you chair bridges and thank you very much for the kind words earlier. commissioners, feel free to eat. i do not want to stand in the way of you and lunch. happy to go over the items today. as you recall, we transitioned to t row price management of

the targeted funds and happy to report the final traunch is completed so the guide path is in officially in design and targeted state. we also hired trp to perform tactical asset allocation as part of the mandate to take advantage of the market opportunities as they present themselves so as part of that, trp needs a cash bucket to make the allocation changes for optimization and they worked with callan and choosing a mutual fund for the dry powder needed for those adjustments. so, after a lengthy search process and in coordination with staff, callan is recommending the vanguard cash reserve money market fund, and greg ungerman is here today to present the methodology of the search as well as the rational for the specific underlying investment of the target date

funds. this item as chair bridges had noted was presented to the deferred compensation committee and it was forwarded with recommendation of approval to the full board. this is more of just a fyi and to request approval so we may move forward. with that said, mr. ungerman, please begin. >> thank you and good afternoon commissioners. slide 1 really captures the thrust of the entire presentation on one slide. as we try to summarize the background and rational and as just mentioned, this really is a tool for t row price your target date manager to use money market fund as a safety from a safety perfective. if they don't like stocks or bonds they can use this allocation. they estimated it is between 0 and $50 million across all the target date funds. keep in mind the funds in total

are about a billion dollars so a small amount in the grand scheme of things. the key objective is liquidity. so able to trade in and out as well as safety, so not losing money. the new-as reminder, this is just for the target date funds. it is not meant to be for participants to access. just for target date usage. we completed a search as mentioned. three finalists. you can see federator [indiscernible] two vanguard money market funds, one is treasury, the other is cash reserves and ultimately the recommendation was made and approved by the dcc to move forward with the vanguard cash reserve money market fund. supporting rational is the very bottom of one, it is very low cost at 10 basis points, performed very well relative to other on a net basis relative

to other money market funds and it doesn't have a minimum, and it is roughly just over hundred billion in assets so very very liquid from that perspective and finally, trades on the voya platform so already plugged in ready to go. i'll stop, see if there are any questions. the bulk of the presentation does a deep dive on the process, candidates, returns and you see the cash reserves has done a very nice job relative to the other alternatives. >> commissioners, any questions? any questions? >> i think the committee has other plans for the future as well as this. >> that is the item so we are requesting approval.

>> [indiscernible] i move we adopt staff recommendation to approve vanguard cash reserve money market fund as the underlying investment for the target date funds. >> second. >> been moved and seconded. public comment, please. >> we have no in person public comment on this item. reminder to press * 3 to be added to the queue. moderator, do we have any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no calls, public comment is now closed. >> okay. been moved and seconded. all in favor say aye. >> aye. >> those opposed? motion carries. are you going to-- >> going to take off. thank you. >> good to see you. madam secretary, you want to call the next item? >> item 15, action item.

investment fee benchmarking analysis. >> thank you. thank you. the next item commissioners is the result of our recent investment fee benchmarking analysis. the plan periodically instructs callan to do this every couple years to insure we are in the lowest shared class possible and maximizing our scale in relation to fees. also, opportunities may arise that were not previously there before and that is the case we are presenting to the committee today. after this analysis callan has identified three additional ways to save nearly $400 thousand that can be passed directly back to the participants. so, the dcc heard this recommendation. also in october, and forwarded

unanimously to the full board with recommendation for approval. it should be noted it will take some time to review the new contracts required for these new vehicles, so we are targeting a roll-out of hopefully before the annual rebalance that takes place in january. with that said, i like to turn it over to mr. ungerman to talk about the methodology of the analysis and specifically where those savings will be coming from. mr. ungerman. >> thank you. slide 1 just jumps right into the methodology and level set what we are asked to do is really just to insure that for all the different investments that you're offering to participants by those investment managers, that you are in the lowest cost available vehicle that is daily value, daily traded that that manager offers.

so, really it is a proactive step to reach out to those managers because sometimes they come out with new share classes, new vehicles from a mutual fund to cit so want to be thorough in that manner. the other aspect is how the fund fees rank relative to peer groups, so the other type of funds. again, there is no performance looking in, all the performance reports we look at are aul al net of fees, but it is just a different lens. there is no requirement that you offer the cheapest investment product to your participants, because there is certainly a value proposition to be had, but we also want to pay attention. are the fees reasonable relative to the other manufactures or investment managers. with that backdrop, i turn your attention to slide 2 and just to orient ourselves, this is is a table of all the investment

options that participants have access. the target date funds, the first row, we collapsed them into one, so just over $900 million. the average expense ratio is 35 basis points and just highlight, included in the very bottom, but that was fee reduction from the previous glide path manager to the tune of about 5 basis points, so that aquated to $440 thousand of savings as a example. you see the 35 basis points. the peer group median fee on the far right is 47. in the back of this report, it breaks out all the different funds and you see the distribution of fees for investment funds that are very similar categories. so, as you move when you look at the net of fee column right next to the peer group median fee, you can see inb fact they are all cheaper then median

peer group fee. i highlighted there is one in blue which is the core bond fund. this is one example and baird is the underlying mutual fund. there is 5 basis points of revenue share, so ultimately the expense ratio is 30, but baird only keeps 25, the 5 extra basis points goes back to the plan for plan expenses. >> [indiscernible] >> we are working with voya to explore sending that back to the participants. at this stage it just stays with the plan. >> thank you. >> the net fee is really the at the end of the day, the fee we are focused on. again, you can see a very strong comparison to the peer group. i'll turn your attention and lastly, there is no outliers and already documented the fee decrease from the target date-switching target date

managers. i was going to skip over the detail and move to the punchline on slide 4. we identified 3 funds with a identical vehicle that is lower cost. investment strategy, investment team are identical. it is just a new access to the plan for a lower fee option. the fidelity low price, the current assets is mutual fund, the net fee is 74 basis points. there is a cit available now at 48 basis points, so you see we have done the math and this is a annualized savings. that will change over time of roughly $328 thousand. the two other funds are index funds by northern trust and again, you could see much smaller fee savings, but none the less, a fee decrease for participants.

so, the bottom line, those three funds are documented on the very bottom of page four and we don't see any reason to not move forward with these lower share classes of the same exact investment fund. >> want to make one comment. monitoring fees is duty to the participants. it is one of the most common lawsuits item that come up all the time. not paying attention to the fees. the thing about, it is wonderful to try to pursue the lowest range of fees, but if a manager has below the median fees that sounds good, but if their performance is below the median that isn't good so it is dual act of watching this balance about fees and performance because it is net of that is what goes to participants. we do look at both numbers, not just simply the best possible low fee.

thank you. >> good point. >> i had one from a documentation standpoint on page 5, these are the component funds that t row uses in the target date funds that don't have participant direct access. there are two that do have revenue share. again, on a net basis. this is cheaper then the other vehicles that they offer without revenue share. it is just a little more housekeeping item, but that evaluation certainly is always important and something we keep fresh. i'll stop there and see if there are any questions. otherwise we move forward with recommending the three share class changes. >> any questions? comments? >> no questions, mr. president. i move that we adopt staff recommendation to move the fidelity low cost stock plan

northern trust and s&p index and northern trust msci eafe index into lowest cost cit vehicles. >> second. >> madam secretary, public comment. >> we have no in person public comment. reminder to callers to press star 3 to be added to the queue. moderator, do we have any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no calls, public comment is now closed. >> before i ask the question, i like to extend thanks to commissioner bridges for the work dc does and diane and your group. thank you. and any committee that comes up with 400 thousand dollars [indiscernible] >> hero. >> been moved and seconded.

all in favor-- >> aye. >> those opposed? motion passes. we are now on 17. >> 16. >> 16. sorry. >> item 16, discussion item. san francisco deferred compensation plan quarterly plan review. >> thank you. commissioners, my last item today for you as part of the dc calendar. this the quarterly report. as you know, i give you a monthly report. the quarterly report is designed to be more comprehensive in nature so you see the business more holistically and covered the 4 pillars of investment, marketing and operations and the record keeper. so, just a brief update here on the investments, you already heard that the target fund glidepath allocations have

reached targeted amounts. those targeted amounts can be found in the memo that i attached here. i also want to reiterate the stable value credit rate. i did mention to you the credit rate of 2.9 percent does remain the same for the quarter, so remain the same from q3 into q4. it is guaranteed through the end of the year and will be reset in q1 of 2024. the reason there was no change is despite increase in yield of the underlying fixed income, there was a decrease in the market ratio. one offsets the other. if there are questions on stable value, greg ungerman can discuss those i like to give the board a opportunity to ask questions before moving to the next pillar. >> any questions? >> excellent. thank you. and so, i am going to just-i

was going to skip around to talk about the retirement--[indiscernible] if we move on to the operations pillar, i wanted to share with the committee that the irs has finally announced we have been waiting for them generally they make the announcement in october but announced a modest $500 increase in contribution limits for 2024. it is important to know there was no increase for the catch up contribution amount thoseane 50 and over. they get to contribute $7500 on top of the annual contribution mount so no change there. as you can see in the memo before you on page 8, you will see the countbution limit from 2023 to 2024.

those under 50 the maximum is $23 thousand for those age 50 and up the maximum is now $30.500 and those eligible for a special contribution, which is for those who are within three years of the normal retirement age, you can contribute up to twice the annual limit, which is now $46 thousand. so, this information will be communicated obviously to our participants and we also work very closely with the city departments to make sure they get that information out as well to respect ive employees. we generally see a bit of uptake in january as a result of this. in addition to the contribution increase, i wanted to share a update with the board. as a result of the recent passing of secure 2.0, so, one

of the provisions basically no longer requires required minimum distribution for those who are subject to them. those are who are 73 and above. in the past if you had a roth ira different from a employer sponsored plan, roth ira was not subject to rmd, but employer plans were. to meet the that requirement the plan has in place to automatically deduct the amount required for the rmd specific to that person every year and make that in the form of a check. now with this recent change of secure 2.0, those rmd are no longer required. for those retirees who don't need that additional income or prefer to keep it invested for capital preservation or legacy, they now have the option to not

take those distributions. we wanted to make sure that these retirees were aware that this was happening, so in the instance they did not want to take r & d in 2024, they would have to convert their account to a roth account prior to the end of the year so they do not have to take r & d in 2024. as a result of that, as you can see in the memo, we did send out a specific direct mail postcard to those specific retirees or terminated employees to inform them that should they want to do a roth conversion by the end of the year to mitigate 2024r & d, they have until december 15 to do so. there is a lot that goes into whether or not you want to do a roth conversion. there are up-front taxes you have to consider, so this is something we strongly encourage participants to obviously discuss with the tax advisor

and to help them have all the facts we also provided a frequently asked questions flier that had a qr code you could access via the direct mail postcard so that i believe was the significance to the board given the dedication to the retirees and then being subject to r & d and the opportunity to not do so. so, that is my update on the roth conversion. any questions on that before i move on to the last pillar? >> any questions? >> excellent. so, i will tie these two together because we did work very closely with voya in launching a very successful 2023 national retirement security month. before i go into the deck, which i will cover quickly, i want to share with the board that the idea of holistic

financial planning has been in place for a while. i remember when i was at schwab we were trying to figure ways to connect the system so you can see their chase bank account or you have things like mint that aggregates all your external account so you have one single view. it seems voya is hopping on that bandwagon so now through the voya website they are launching what they call, dashboard where in this way you can now connect and outside account to actually see all your dollars and therefore you may be able to make some changes to your asset allocation knowing where you have money elsewhere. so, this is part of the holistic planning financial planning goal and that is something they are launching out in mid-december. if the committee would like more information on that, i

believe i had included a voya dashboard as well as in the materials you are welcome to go through. and the last thing i have for the committee and thank you so much for your patience is what is on the screen. it is basically our results. last time i spoke to you i was telling you about the kick off of the campaign and happy to share with you some preliminary results and share off the top of my head actually how it compares to last year and how we improved. so, if you could actually forward to slide 5. keep going. here. this is great. thank you so much. this is basically capturing how many people have accessed our site and it shows you as well

what the topics people are interested in. obviously our retirement fomo live presentation received the most clicks. that seemed to be popular. fomo stands for fear of missing out. that seemed to resinate well this year, so we are looking to see if we can continue with more sort of on topic catchy phrases to sort of instill people to take action. the number you see here for the number of page views, you see about 1500 or 1600 total. last year for 2022 we had about 1200, so nice little bump there that we got. we move on to two more pages. we'll go to the e-mail results. thank you. this commissioner is what i'm particularly proud of and you should be too of how engaged our participants are and what

happens when you partner with other city departments to get the word out. so, what i like to draw your attention to is, you have the e-mail column, delivered column and then you have the open column. that is basically when we track people who take the time to open an e-mail. what you can see is, you can see the number of people who opened it. for the cyber security e-mail sent on 10-10, we had all most 71 percent open rate. that is unheard of. people would kill for these types of open rates. and so, we were-first of all, cyber security is very important and also the fact we had such high open rates demonstrate the level of engagement our participants have. compared to last year, you can see the overall average open rate is about 66 percent and if you compare to last year, it

was about 56 percent, so we improved our open rate with this new marketing campaign by 10 percent which i think is rather significant. if we move to the next page quickly, these numbers are blank. they are still pending so this is when we thake a look at the account and the actions taken. we have to go into each account and figure that out. that will take a little more time and hopefully i'll be able to give you final numbers at thend of the year. and i think we won't have to go through the entire deck. i think a lot of it is self--explanatory. what i would like to share with you is the second to the last page, which is basically the survey comments that were provided. here you can see some of it. it was overwhelmingly positive, and i was really really delighted to see that we had so

many people come to us and ask us to do more and they even asked us--can we go back to the verbatim page, please? yes. this one here. and it was great for them to hear this information and we want to make sure that we factor in this feedback. i also want to share with the committee that i was delighted to see some of these folks. there was all most 80 people and they came from all over the city. when i mean all over, i mean from cesar chavez, general hospital or take the bus, the rec and park folks would come in and they would actually take action, and i always felt--natural affinity to rec and park folks because i'm a resident and see them out there

working all the time, but trying to find ways for us to get the webinar out or seminar out into those locations to make it a little easier for them. as you know, they are going on their own time from 12 to 1, and choosing to spend it with us, so that was one thing we really wanted to take away and then finally, the last thing is, as part of our nrsm campaign, we had a webinar that was basically about caregiving. the sandwich generation of those who are taking care of their elderly and also taking care of their children and also what option are available for those who have folks with special needs in their family. that was a very popular topic and commissioner driscoll suggested us to pull together something that was on demand so folks could watch that webinar without having to come to the

seminar and that is basically conducted through the voya cares group. happy to announce we are working on that and working on the script and there seems to be a genuine interest in that from the team, so i will report back when it is complete. >> the virtual aspect of it is expanding in terms of desire to have more? >> yes. >> okay. >> we will want to provide the full experience as if somebody had also attended the webinar.

>> okay. >> with you say access on demand means they can watch any time? >> correct. >> because you have some that are not access on demand, but a set time, correct? >> that is correct. >> just a suggestion. not every department for example sf general might be the one place it couldn't be done. certainly departments have locations where they have conference rooms and may have screens where they could pull up their webinar off the computer if people to sit in lunch time and maybe tried to contact the department. >> some departments are more agreeable to our presence then others. >> yes, they are. the department head should be the first to attend the meeting, but you are on it. thank you diane. >> i'll chime in. it is a great tool, because if you are trying to get people back to the office and that tends to be more universal now

then it was, having that in the office if they have facilities [difficulty hearing speaker] having a launch or whatever or just having the action with their fellow colleagues is a real positive in terms of how we do business. when you go with a good numbers that you got and good service and good swag bags- [laughter] anyhow--i think it is great thing to expand on. >> thank you. that concludes my presentation. >> commissioners, any comments? questions? >> bring it up here. one of the sections of the library, the presenter at one point apologize for not calling

him right away, he said participants goal should be a 12 percent savings rate. i was--just wondering whether we should endorse that or why you said considering most members are [indiscernible] you said-not trying to get out of context. it is a very high number to give members as a goal. he all most put out, this is what you need to do and don't think we stated the replacement goal. great session. people very happy and reviews show that, but that is one thing he said and and left the room before it was over, but if you try to follow up on that one. >> yes, you are right. i think the 12 to 13 percent seems to be the general rule of thumb and i don't know if it is greg-can you touch on that a bit? i agree with the sensitivity of 27 percent of the salary is already gone before we even

talk about dcc but greg can you talk more about that percentage? >> i can't speak for him, i wasn't there, but it sounds like a industry goalpost and it is a bit more aspirational because you can't get time back. >> [indiscernible] >> okay. that was matthew smith who diz the presentation and one final note because i have been following the board today, i believe that there was the military bipac approved. i wanted to inform the committee, there is the possibility of people using deferred compensation for those military buy back s so we may see [indiscernible] on the dc side going to the db side to buy back time. we'll report back so we continue to track those numbers

and see where else we can garner contributions from, but that is going to be a impact that you should be aware of. >> okay, any other questions? comments? thank you very much. >> thank you. >> madam secretary, you want to call public comment? >> thank you we have no in person public comment on this item. reminder to callers press * 3 to be added to the queue. moderator, any callers? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no calls, public comment is now closed. >> madam secretary, call the next item please. >> item 17, discussion item. chief investment officer's report. >> commissioners, highlight a few things in this report. assets currentsly stand at $33

billion to summarize performance this is always estimated. when i provide the reports. performance is estimatesed at 7.6 percent. to put that in context over the same period of 60-30-10 portfolio return 2.1 percent so beat a standard index portfolio and also exceeded actuarially rate of return over the last three years. want to provide a update of board approved investments at the board meeting april 20, 2023 the retirement board approved investment [indiscernible] the commitment of 70 million close october 12, 2023 is classified real estate investment and sfers second investment with the al tera property group. i would like to highlight for

the board you haven't seen quite as many updates of close deals i think in the last few sessions. that has nothing to do with delegation or otherwise. we are still committed as we approve investments internally that once they close we'll report those to the board. we have had a number of items or sorry, investments that have made it through our very robust internal process for approval, but not yet closed and when they do they will come before the board. the process is working well. i can tell you that our groups and internal teams are very diligent in preparing to present to the colleagues and to me for approval and we are very tough and appropriately tough in asking questions to make sure all the appropriate diligence and work and analysis is being done. one thing that probably also may not be evident but i want to make sure the board knows,

that process and diligence of our team in cases may result in us not moving forward with a investment and that is a strong indication our process is working as well. we had a recent case that an item came up in operational due diligence so not investment diligence, but operational due diligence, our team really dug in and even though they were far along in the process attempting to say we'll just move forward, they dug in, they worked with consultants, advisors to understand the situation and were on par now, so i won't talk about the specific investment, but i want today highlight those are things going on with the team that give me comfort the work is being done and i want to make sure you are aware of that as well. so, more to come and future meetings about other deals that are closed and funded, but that is where we are today. >> i personally think that that last item is really important

in terms of highlighting what the team is doing, in terms of now with the delegation we are doing and just solidifying the confidence level that everybody has. we made the right decision. that was great. general comment. how is the top of the funnel going? is it deal flow coming in? >> i think in general fund raising has slowed and putting money to work we already committed has slowed. that said, i would describe the overall market and very broad generalization as a focus on quality and what i mean by that is, managers that have done very well that have a good track record and a good team are still attracting assets and those are managers we want to continue to partner with and some cases we have a opportunity to get access to

deals maybe we didn't or funds i should say, we didn't before. that does put us in a strong position. it is true in other investments too when we look who we want to partner with we are looking for those that are quality managers and make quality investments because that's what is going to make it through what could be a potentially challenging financial market. so, it has slowed down, but not--i think there is a bifurcation in what managers are experiencing and what we see in the market in terms of ability to put money to work. >> good quality managers go well and good quality decision making--good. any questions of the cio report? well done.

public comment, please. >> we have no in person public comment on the item. moderator, do we have any callers on the line ? >> madam secretary, no callers on the line. >> thank you, public comment is now closed ; and next item. >> item 18, discussion item. retirement board member good of the order. >> commissioners. no good of the order. good of the order is get around the city in the next week. >> that's right. with proper id. >> next item. >> we have no in person public comment on this item. moderator, any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on had line. >> thank you, hearing no calls, public comment is now closed. item 19.

adjournment. >> adjournment. thank you everyone. >> thank you. [meeting adjourned] story.

>> hi he my name is dean pes continue district 5 supervise and congratulate it sfgovtv on their thirty year anniversary thank you, so much for bringing transparency and accountability to government and for all you do happy anniversary. >> on behalf of all we want to say thank you, sfgovtv thank you for being here. and your help in the women's leadership convention and congratulations sfgovtv on our thirty years of service the office of government affairs he happy to partner

>> good afternoon. everyone. welcome to the december 4, 2023 meeting of land use and transportation the board of supervisors. we would like to welcome creighton today as our clerk and john carroll i'm supervisor melgar and dean preston and board of supervisor president member of this committee aaron supervisor peskin. >> i would like to thank sfgovtv for supporting us. do we have announcements?