11-25-2025 Council Regular Meeting [51:22-56:24]

State that each county sheriff is now required once a year to have a presentation to the county council on the state of the sheriff's pension fund. The retirement fund. So as such, Judy Giles from German-American is here to go roll that and kind of give you the required update. This is a new thing. And actually I think we're the first county that she's doing it to. We kind of tried to get her to be the first here. And so she's kind of give you what she thinks that you need here. Judy? Just a fact. I think it's important all of you to know I'm asking for any money tonight. This has been very interesting. So as sheriff indicated, state bill 144 passed in session this year. And it basically requires every county in the state, every sheriff pension plan provided report to the county council. There are some counties in our state where their pension plan is locally underfunded. And as you know, that's a budget item that you approve every year and it gets invested in the pension plan. So what I've done is I've taken the January 1, 2025 valuation report from the actuary of the pension plan. There's actually two pension plans in existence. One is just a defined benefit retiree payment plan for when married employees retire from the from the force and are entitled to a benefit. And then the second plan is just that it's a benefit plan that pays monthly benefits to a survivor of someone who might have been killed during duty or passed away. So there's a benefit, a life insurance benefit that goes to their survivors or it pays disability. And so the bill requires certain details be provided to the county. And basically what you're charged with is just confirming and or knowing that the plan is in good health or not. There's a county in southern Indiana that is not in good health with which precipitated this law going into effect. So it's the sense of one effect 92 counties. So so basically the first page is just that it's about the retirement benefit plan and it tells you what it is. The plan administrator is actually the local county sheriff's merit board who oversees and provides oversight. The employer is the sheriff office. The trustee and investment manager is our trust company at German American Bay. For the record, my name is Jody Giles and I lead our retirement services division there and we work with a total of nine county sheriff plans including Lawrence County. The actuary is McCreedy and keen out of Indianapolis also recently merged with October three and McCreedy and keen supports 91 of 92 counties with that annual valuation report that basically determines the health of the plan. But the county contribution is required what benefit payments are things like that. So they're actually they do all the record keeping nuts and bolts. We are the trustee of the assets money comes in and only money goes out that's been approved or plan document allows. So we we oversee that and we manage the money and the retirement plan. And key metrics and so this is a big deal if you have a public corporation that has a defined benefit pension plan. It's governed by the federal government and there is a division called the PBGC of our federal government that all those corporations pay. Premiums to guarantee those pension benefits are available if that company goes under and can't make their can't make their obligations to those retirees. Municipalities states do not have that coverage from the federal government which is why this meeting is very important. But PBGC considers a plan to be of good health if it's at least 80% funded under the actual report. And so that very first key statistic there for you as of 1 1 2025 Lawrence County's defined benefit retirement plan is at 93.4% funded. And so it's in it's in very good help when we took it over we've been working with the department since 2019 so we've been on board for a little over six years now.