Travis County Commissioners Court
January 23, 2007
Item 9
Number 9 is to discuss and take appropriate action on the following recommendations regarding a contract with the retirement store to provide ongoing plan consulting services to the Commissioners court and the oversight committee. 9-a is a source of funding. And b is award of contract:
>> judge, if we could go to b first and discuss awarding the contract, I think that's our first question is do you want to award this contract? And this contract is to the retirement store for consulting services, and have you in your backup a list of services that would be provided. It is to respond to general questions, and let me just kind of set the stage for people that are viewing. The Travis County has a deferred compensation plan that is allowed under the 457-b i.r.s. Code that's called deferred compensation where employees are allowed to defer some of them compensation tax free and then they pay their taxes upon wriewl and the -- withdrawal and the jd you would be in a lower tax bracket upon retirement. It's really an assistance for people to save money for retirement. We have right now a contract with nationwide for administration of that particular fund. There's about $26 million in that fund now, and that's a significant amount. In previous years we have worked with naco and we have had a contract, an agreement with naco and nationwide since 1980. The contract was approved for a year last year --
>> the new contract.
>> yearks the new contract was approved by the court with nationwide last year. It's a one-year contract. The particular contract that have you before you is to hire a consultant to yoaf see a committee that was going to yoaf see the plan. In terms of the services the consultant would provide, he will respond to any general questions about the plan, he would help monitor the industry, the report. I think most significant in those bullets is the development of a formal investment policy statement for the plan by the committee and also would assist in the education and training of the oversight committee. That is sort of services that we are asking for you to approve from this consultant. Again, it's $26 million. It's a very large fund. When you're dealing with investments it becomes complex. We do not have anyone on staff with particular expertise. The amount of the contract would be not to exceed $25,000 for one year, one percent of 26 million or less than one percent.
>> did the committee unanimously -- were they unanimous with supporting this?
>> this time the question was raised about how we would be invoiced this amount? What's the answer to that?
>> the invoices would be on an hourly basis according to the time that is spent. We talked about limiting, fram, if we have a -- for example, if we have a committee meet, to limit it to two hours and say we have to get it all our questions in, we have to work on this particular task these two hours so we don't take more of the consultant's time that is really needed.
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> our fiduciary responsibility I think is for all the employees.
>> okay.
>> that treats them equally.
>> what happened to the survey ?
>> we had events that jumped in the middle of our develop developing the survey. We will be doing that.
>> I keep asking for the survey and I don't get it.
>> we got a little behind with the sice storm but we will have the survey put together probably by the end of this month and released.
>> okay. You must be real happy about this.
>> when it comes to taking the vote, there will be funding.
>> it will be so fast, it won't matter.
>> okay.
>> any more discussion of the motion? Do we have the contract back back. We're still waiting.
>> I believe we have. I'm waiting for funding.
>> okay. All in favor. Show Commissioners abstaining and Gomez abstaining until she gets her survey. Now, we want to hurry onto a which is source of funding. The issue of a $10,000 contribution from nationwide to help fund this contract has surfaced two or three times. And we have left it hanging two or three times. That's the issue about source of funding, whether we take the 25,000 from allocated reserve or whether we take 15 or risk manage management reserve.
>> judge, excuse me. Pudge and planning office. Under item 4, t 1 is a transfer that if approved would move 25,000 of internal resources towards the contract. If the court decides to make ament, we can change that to 15,000.
>> that's another option. The big question seemed to be what about the 10,000 in the contract now. If we do nothing, our agreement with nationwide now is for them to contribute $10,000. Right ?
>> to be used in any way the court wants to that relates to administrative toward the compensation program.
>> barb rack--barbara, excuse me, I have the particular language from the contract for the court.
>> read that to us, please.
>> I sure will. It says, paragraph 5.6 of the county's agreement with nationwide, it says see attachment. Agrees to provide $10,000 to the county to cover account account's cost to engage such a consultant.
>> a lot more specific there there.
>> yeah.
>> if we do nothing, that language stays as it is. The county judges keep the peace motion last week died for lack of a second. Is there a new motion or should we leave it like it is ?
>> from internal.
>> if we do nothing, we have 10,000 already. I think we ought the go to 15, go to ergonomics reserve pull 15,000 from there for a total of 25.
>> I maybe the only one that has the angs over this $10 $10,000.
>> okay.
>> I guess I can get over that, given, I am hopeful that we will do a rfp the next time to see whether or not, you know, we truly are getting the best deal that we can get. And maybe our deal when we put our rfp out is that, you know what, you need to put $ $10,000 aside, because let's face it, this $10,000 is coming from somewhere from nationwide. You know, or we could be asking, hey--
>> for 25.
>> --why don't you give us a $10,000 better deal. Because you are making it up somewhere. So I'm happy to say if we go out with a rfp, we say, you know, one of the things you need to stick in the rff is that you are going to give us $10,000 so we can really have an apples to apples deal. I think we need to be real up front and honest. The real reason that I am so insistent on this is because there are a number of people that have worked with us in the last year and a half that quite honestly get a good deal. I think we have hammered down, you know, a pretty good, or hammered out a pretty good deal with nation nationwide. But let's not fool ourselves ourselves. When somebody is going to give you $10,000, they are giving you $10,000 out of some profits, $10,000 out of something. And that the fine. I mean, since we, I do think that we need to have the consultant, our committee says we're going to be much more comfortable with that, I mean, that the fine.
>> move that we take 15,000 from the ergonomics reserve to supplement the 10,000 we already have.
>> second.
>> discussion? That would be the source of funding, those two sources. All in favor? Show Commissioners Gomez, dougherty, voting in favor. Commission Davis voting against.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, January 23, 2007 8:33 PM