MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
January 4, 2012
CALL TO ORDER
President John Jacobsen called the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Los Angeles Firemen’s Relief Association to order at 10:35 a.m.
ROLL CALL
MEMBERS PRESENT:
- John Jacobsen, President
- Juan Albarran, Vice President
- Andrew Kuljis, Secretary
- Trustee James Coburn – Battalion 4
- Trustee Chris Stine – Battalion 6
- Trustee Rick Godinez – Battalion 7
- Trustee Doak Smith – Battalion 9
- Trustee Francisco Hernandez – Battalion 10
- Trustee Chris Hart – Battalion 11
- Trustee Craig White – Battalion 12
- Trustee Mark Akahoshi, Battalion 13
- Trustee Steven Domanski – Battalion 15
- Trustee David Peters – Battalion 17
- Trustee Steve Tufts – Battalion 18
- Trustee David Ortiz – Headquarters 1
- Trustee Kurt Stabel – Headquarters 2
- Trustee David Lowe – Pension 1
- Trustee Barry Hedberg – Pension 2
- Trustee Tim Larson – Pension 3
- David Ned Smith – Executive Director
- Controller – Todd Layfer
MEMBERS ABSENT:
- Trustee Jeff Cawdrey – Battalion 1 (Excused)
- Trustee Gene Bednarchik – Battalion 2 (Excused)
- Trustee Michael Overholser – Battalion 3 (Excused)
- Trustee Gary Matsubara – Battalion 5 (Excused)
- Trustee Robert Steinbacher – Battalion 14 (Excused)
GUESTS:
- Tom Stires, Retired
INVOCATION & Flag Salute
Andy Kuljis led the invocation. David Lowe led the flag salute.
RATIFICATION OF MINUTES
John Jacobsen entertained a motion to ratify and dispense with the reading of the minutes of the Board of Trustees meeting held December 1, 2011. David Peters so moved. Tim Larson seconded the motion. There was no further discussion or objections.
Motion carried to ratify and dispense with the reading of the minutes of the Board of Trustees meeting held December 1, 2011.
PRESIDENT’S REPORT
1) John Jacobsen entertained a motion to appoint Chris Stine, Craig White, Robert Steinbacher and Steve Tufts into the vacant Trustee positions. David Peters so moved. David Ortiz seconded. Jacobsen stated that they will currently be recognized as; Stine – Battalion 6, White – Battalion 12, Steinbacher – Battalion 14 and Tufts – Battalion 18. There was no further discussion or objections.
Motion carried to appoint the Battalion Trustee positions as stated.
2) Andrew Kuljis proceeded in giving the even-numbered Battalion Trustees and the Pension Trustee Barry Hedberg the Oath of Office for their positions.
3) Jacobsen stated that based upon the By-law changes passed this year, the new Trustee election process will begin in 2012. He indicated that in order to implement the new process, they need to group all the current Trustees into three separate groups. This will done by randomly drawing Trustee names for each of the three groups. The names were randomly picked as stated;
Group 1
Jeff Cawdrey
Gene Bednarchik
Chris Stine
Michael Overholser
David Ortiz
Robert Steinbacher
Barry Hedberg (Pension)
Group 2
Mark Akahoshi
Rick Godinez
Craig White
Steve Tufts
David Peters
Doak Smith
David Lowe (Pension)
Group 3
Gary Matsubara
James Coburn
Chris Hart
Kurt Stabel
Steve Domanski
Frank Hernandez
Tim Larson (Pension)
Jacobsen stated that according to the new By-laws for elections, Group 1 will be up for election later this year, Group 2 will be up in two years and Group 3 will be up for election in three years. The cycle will continue with Trustees serving 3 years.
4) Jacobsen referred to the Pension Audit and stated that they have received some documents from them asking how LAFRA is currently conducting business, how we exchange information with the Pensions department and what data is sent back and forth. He indicated that the Pension Department is looking to finalize the audit in February.
5) Jacobsen referred to Legacy Society which is part of the Planned Giving – Estate Planning program. He indicated that we need to reconsider a few decisions from what was originally approved. The Marketing organization has raised the concern as to the message LAFRA would be sending to the membership by requiring a minimum donation to be part of the Legacy Society. He stated that after much research, the Marketing Department has asked the Board to eliminate the minimum contribution to be recognized in the Planned Giving/Legacy Society program.
Craig White motioned to approve the elimination of the minimum contribution to be recognized as part of the Legacy Society program based on the recommendations from the Marketing Department. Frank Hernandez seconded. There was no further discussion or objections.
Motion carried to approve elimination of the minimum contribution to be recognized as part of the Legacy Society program based on the recommendations from the Marketing Department.
6) Jacobsen informed the Board that Liz Denison was going to provide an update regarding the FRITS system as well as other system conversions.
Liz Denison provided an update on the FRITS system and the impact of nine different organizations that exchange data with changing their computer systems. She reported that U.S. Bank and Kaiser were the simplest in reprogramming as well as the Medicare D interfacing. She indicated that the Pension Department is now receiving the LAFRA monthly updates electronically and mentioned that there were some glitches with their accounting system. She mentioned that the Marketing Department has put in a new Donor Perfect system that has interfaced well with the FRITS system and now have the capability to import data from the system. She reported that the interfaces with HSB and the Anthem Blue Cross systems were highly inflexible. She indicated that the changes they made in the data exchange were very significant which caused some glitches with the programming but has been dealt with. She reported that there were many issues with the Long Term Care interfacing and indicated that there were some manual functions with billing differences. She stated that they continue to experience issues because Unum is manually creating their spreadsheet that is sent to LAFRA once per month. She indicated that Unum is working on automating that process and are 75% done. She referred to the changes in the active members’ payroll system. She stated that currently they exchange one file per month with the payroll department but may increase to six files per month. She indicated that they also added a few reporting functions in gathering data for the Assistance Committee and added a report process for dealing with memorials.
The Board thanked Liz Denison for her efforts and many years of service to LAFRA which will continue in to the future.
VICE PRESIDENT REPORT
Juan Albarran asked for those interested in helping with the Grass Valley event which will be held May 16th through May 20th.
INVESTMENT COMMITTEE REPORT
Jacobsen mentioned that the Committee and any interested Trustee will meet with Garth Flint at an off-site meeting to discuss Beacon Pointe’s roll with LAFRA and other pressing issues concerning investments. He stated that the meeting will be scheduled for some time in March.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S REPORT
David Smith informed the Board that they are working on the 2012 budget and will first present it to the Administrative Committee on January 18th and then submit for approval at the February Board meeting. He also mentioned that the kick off meeting for the Audit Committee will be on January 26th to begin the annual audit by the outside audit firm.
ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE REPORT
Chris Hart presented the following motions.
The committee recommends and I so move to pay the usual and customary bills in the amount of $732,439.97. There was no discussion or objections.
Motion carried to pay the usual and customary bills in the amount of $732,439.97.
The committee recommends and I so move to pay the professional fees in the amount of $8,528.84. There was no discussion or objections.
Motion carried to pay the professional fees in the amount of $8,528.84.
The committee recommends and I so moved to approve the conference schedule list for 2012 and to approve up to four Trustees to attend each conference. There was no discussion or objections.
Motion carried to approve the conference schedule list for 2012 and approve up to four Trustees to attend each conference.
MEDICAL COMMITTEE REPORT
David Peters presented the following motions.
The committee recommends and I so move to accept the applications to the Medical Plan. There was no discussion and no objections.
Motion carried to accept all applications to the Medical Plan.
David Peters informed that they will hold a special Medical committee meeting on Jan 17th to discuss the ensuing year’s plan.
RELIEF COMMITTEE REPORT
James Coburn presented the following motion.
The committee recommends and I so move to pay:
The Sick & Injury benefits in the amount of $16,411.33
The Estate Planning benefit in the amount of $6,593.90,
The Life & Accident Withdrawals in the amount of $3,006
The Relief Death Benefits in the amount of $40,500
There was no discussion or objections.
Motion carried to pay the above Relief benefits.
James Coburn stated that the Relief committee is requesting an actuarial study of the Relief Fund and benefits to include the financial position of the fund and expenses. He stated that the committee wants to determine future plans for the membership and possible benefits.
Motion carried.
James Coburn read the names of members who recently passed and asked for a moment of silence from the Board.
MEMORIALS
David R. Bayless
Raymond T. Camuzano
Leon E. Eggers
Jack M. Davis
Gerald J. George
Jack W. Creager
Douglas P. McDonald
David P. Kober
Wayne H. Jepsen
ASSISTANCE COMMITTEE
James Coburn presented the following motions.
The committee recommends and I so move to accept the donations in the amount of $17,187.26 to the Widows, Orphans & Disabled Firemen’s Fund. There was no discussion or objections.
Motion carried to accept the donations in the amount of $17,187.26 to the Widows, Orphans & Disabled Firemen’s Fund.
Donations to WODFF for December 2011
- LOS ANGELES FIREMEN’S CREDIT UNION
- NITA K EVANS FOUNDATION
- FIRE STATION #10
- HARLAN R. WOOD WHICH REPRESENTS MY YEARLY CONTRIBUTION
- JAMES R. LEAKE IN GRATITUDE FOR THE DURABLE MEDICAL EQUIPMENT
- ANTONETTE C RAYCRAFT
- TODD SANDS
- BONNIE RAITT
- DANIEL LEON
- ROBERT D. PATTERSON FOR ALL THE GOOD GUYS GONE
- PAT JESSUP
- PETER HATZIANTONIOU
- STEPHEN H. CONWELL
- JOHN M. SCHERREI IN MEMORY OF TONY ENNIS
- RICHARD WATTERS
- DON RICKLES
- ETHEL CRUMPACKER
- MR. & MRS. JOHN STEPHENS IN HONOR OF GLENN ALLEN
- RICHARD M. LAMBINE
- J. BENOIT
- KAREN A LARSON
- STEVEN B. RYDER
- CHRISTOPHER C. ENNIS IN MEMORY OF YOUR BROTHER THOMAS A. ENNIS RET’D ASSIST. CHIEF
- STANLEY D. STEVENS IN LOVING MEMORY OF OUR SON DAVE STEVENS
- WILLIAM A. BENEKE IN MEMORY OF CHIEKO TESTERMAN
- DORIS S. TUCKER IN MEMORY OF ARNOLD TUCKER
- MARCIA BREWER IN MEMORY OF RUSS MCMENAMIN
- KENNETH L. DAMERON IN MEMORY OF TONY ENNIS
- ROBERT W. LEVINGSTON IN MEMORY OF GERALD J. GEORGE
- BETTIE CLARK
- LAWRENCE KROKES
- JOHN SQUIRE
- HELEN SCHULZ
- FS 92 EXTINGUISHER FUND
- FS 98 EXTINGUISHER FUNDS
- DELORES S SHODEEN
- EDWARD HOLLAND
- JEAN A FREY
- FRANCES WATT
- COMPLETE HEALTH SYSTEM INC
- BETTY L CLARICH
- FUMIKO HUMBERD JR
- ROGER GILLIS
- MARY JEAN MURPHY
- CAROLYN MORRIS
- DUDLEY E. SORENSON
- DORY JONES
- CLARENCE R. STAPEL IN MEMORY OF B. JUNE RUPP
- FIRE STATION NO 26
- HELEN MEGORDEN
- WILLIAM BURNIDGE
- DONALD CATE
- CALDWELL LADIES GOLF ASSOCIATION
- RICHARD WATTERS
- JAMES E. GILLUM FROM THE “BREAKFAST GANG”
- DAVE BADGETT IN MEMORY OF TONY ENNIS
The committee recommends and I so move to approve the financial assistance applications for surviving spouses, active and retired members. There was no discussion or objections.
Motion carried to approve the financial assistance applications for surviving spouses, active and retired members.
EMERGENCY ADVANCEMENTS
James Coburn presented the following motion.
The committee recommends and I so move to approve the emergency advancement applications for active and retired members. There was no discussion or objections.
Motion carried to approve the emergency advancement applications for active and retired members.
GRAPEVINE/WEBSITE COMMITTEE REPORT
Chris Hart informed that the Administrative committee approved up to $2,000 for consultant services for the website. He mentioned that on Jan 17th he would like to hold a Website committee meeting to discuss plans for the future of the website and for the Grapevine magazine.
SCHOLARSHIP COMMITTEE REPORT
Doak Smith stated that they have placed information about the Scholarship Program on the website and it will also be published in the next Grapevine. He mentioned that the application deadline will be in April and the essay exam will be held in May.
SETTING OF DATES
1) Buzzard Bait Ride – January 13th – 15th
2) L.A. Athletic Club Poker Tournament – January 28th
3) Hook & Ladder Enduro – March 24th
4) Corbin Bowl – May 6th
5) Lane Kemper Softball Tournament – May 9th
6) Grass Valley – May 16th – 20th
7) Hope for Firefighters – June 7th
8) Over the Line Tournament – September 13th
9) LAFD Invitational Golf Tournament – September 24th
10) IFEBP Annual Employee Benefits Conf. – November 11th – 14th
11) LAFRA Open House – December 1st
RETIREMENT DINNERS
1) Marvin Williams – January 20th The Odyssey (Cawdrey)
2) Ed Banda – January 26th L.A. Police Academy (Lowe)
3) Chris Kawai – February 17th Brookside Country Club (Akahoshi)
4) John Martinez – March 1st San Antonio Winery (Larson)
5) Fred Lopez – April 29th Sportsmen’s Lodge
ADJOURNMENT
John Jacobsen entertained a motion to adjourn. David Ortiz so moved. Kurt Stabel seconded. There was no discussion and no objections.
Motion carried to adjourn.
The Board of Trustees meeting adjourned at 11:30am.
John Jacobsen, President