IPERS Improvement Association Meeting Minutes
March 30, 2022 @ 11:00 AM
Saints Avenue Café, Boone, IA and via ZOOM
The meeting was called to order by President Bill Maas @ 11:10 a.m.
PRESENT: Gary Davis, Julie Conolly, Phil Johnson, Bruce Hovden, Andrew Hennesy, Steve Williams, Bill Maas, Jean Keller. Members meeting via Zoom were Gary Jedlicka and Linda Linn.
We had everyone introduce themselves to new board member Bruce Hovden prior to approval of the minutes. Bruce Hovden retired from the Assessor’s office in 2016. Andrew Hennesy explained him the function of the BAC committee.
APPROVAL OF AGENDA WITH FLEXIBILITY
Motion By: Phil Johnson Seconded By: Steve Williams
All ayes; motion carried.
APPROVAL OF JANUARY 27, 2022 MINUTES
Motion By: Julie Conolly Seconded By: Bruce Hovden
All ayes; motion carried.
TREASURER’S/MEMBERSHIP REPORTS
Membership is 705 dues paying members to date. 170 members haven’t paid yet this year.
Checking account: $11,496.56 MM Savings: $10,283.82
MOTION TO ACCEPT TREASURERS/MEMBERSHIP REPORT:
Motion By: Phil Johnson Seconded By: Gary Davis
All ayes; motion carried.
FUTURE LOCATION FOR BOARD MEETINGS
We met at the Saints Avenue Café to determine if we would like to make this our site for all future meetings. President Bill Maas did calculations on mileage payment and determined it would cost about the same amount for everyone if we met at this location. It is more centrally located for more board members. Members in attendance liked the location and meeting room. So, all future meetings will now be at the Saints Avenue Café in Boone.
LEGISLATION/LOBBYINGSue Peterson will remain on the investment board from the BAC committee to the Governor.
HF2374 will make the state fair police force IPERS employees. They will be a protected class as state troopers. This bill also included raising earning limits to $50,000 to deal with labor
shortages. There has been some discussion at the BAC meetings about possibly doing away with a tax on IPERS. No comments on this until after the legislative session is over. Linda Linn stated if pensions aren’t taxed then cities and counties will need to raise taxes to compensate for this. HF2317 was signed on March 1 by the Governor. And finally, there doesn’t seem to be a need currently to do any lobbying concerning IPERS this legislative session.
WEBSITE
The new IPERS Improvement Association brochure has been added to the website. We are getting good traction on our Facebook page. We need to continue to keep adding information to this. It was discussed that the Executive Board should be a filter for any information added to this. It was felt we needed to have approval for this.
MOTION TO ALLOW EXECUTIVE BOARD AS A FILTER FOR DISSIMINATED INFORMATION
Motion By: Phil Johnson Seconded By: Andrew Hennesy
Linda Linn doesn’t vote on this but will make sure the disseminated information from the Executive Board, which includes President Bill Maas, Vice President Steve Williams, Secretary/Treasurer Jean Keller and Past President Andrew Hennesy, will get added to this.
All ayes; motion carried.
OTHER BUSINESS
Some members are questioning if the dividends would be coming back since inflation is affecting them. The short answer is no. The fund is functioning well, and the funding has gone from being funded from infinity to now being fully funded within 24 years. IPERS investment return is currently at 7.2%. Gary Davis mentioned another question from membership was if IPERS had investments with China or Russia. They do but it’s a very small portion. He also mentioned there is some public education concern for legislation. But there currently isn’t anything being legislated for this year.
We had discussed the possibility of increasing membership dues. Membership hasn’t been increasing as there hasn’t been any issues with IPERS. Are we maximizing our messaging with people? President Maas is talking about writing a letter to the Editor of the Des Moines Register as a legislator had mentioned the possibility of dipping into it. When Bill gets this written we will have this posted on our website and pinned to Gary Davis’s website, Don’t Touch My IPERS.
One final note is we will make sure to have our minutes posted on the website after they have been approved by the board. Since the January minutes have been approved, we will make sure those get added to the website. There is a BAC meeting scheduled for April 25 also.
The next meeting of IIA will be June 22 @ 11:00 at the Saints Avenue Café in Boone. The annual meeting is scheduled for October 19 @ 11:00 a.m. Postcards will get sent out in September for
this meeting.
Motion to adjourn: Andrew Hennesy Seconded by: Steve Williams
Meeting adjourned at 12:00.
Submitted by,
Jean A. Keller
IIA Secretary/Treasurer