--------- Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the Community Development Committee meeting for uh Tuesday, June 9th. I now call the meeting to order and ask for approval of the February 10th meeting minutes. I'll second.
Second? Any comments, corrections to those minutes? Seeing none, all in favor say I. >> I. >> All in the negative say nay. Seeing none, let's move on. We have briefings today. First one is the library strategic plan.
Dory? >> Good afternoon uh Mayor Pro Tem Flores and council members on the Community Development Committee. It's wonderful to see you all today and I'm very excited to share with you some updates um to our library strategic planning process.
Our plan is is called the next chapter starts with you, which I think is a lot of fun. Um we have our current strategic plan that expired in 2021. It was a uh three-year plan and you can see we had
six focus areas that we really wanted to look at as a result of that study that was done. Um we're very passionate about our customer engagement and you can see I'm not going to read through all of these, but you know, we're we're very focused on serving the community.
Uh arts and culture is another area where we've really made a lot of strides, education and growth, which is really about learning and making that fun for folks. Of course, we are the library, so we'll always be looking at books and reading.
Um community vitality is really about nurturing economic development, entrepreneurship, and just creating that opportunity for all people to thrive. And then lastly, um but very, very important is our employee empowerment, um just making sure that
we're supporting our city's goals, and really working with our people to develop them into uh great library employees, and also just hopefully happy and and healthy folks. I have a colleague who likes to say, "We've squeezed every single last drop
that we possibly could have out of our current strategic plan." These are just a sampling of the accomplishments that um have resulted from the strategic plan. Um you can see many, many of the things that were done. I want to just highlight a few of these for you.
Um increased checkout of library materials was a big goal. And uh I know many of you have heard me say this before, but I'm really excited that our FY25 number of checkouts, which was just over 4.3
million checkouts, was our highest-ever recorded amount of checkouts in the history of Fort Worth Public Library. Yes, cheer for that. Another real key accomplishment is the elimination of fines and fees as a
barrier. Um I'm really happy that uh we are no longer penalizing people for overdue materials. Uh a lot of studies have shown that when you reduce barriers like overdue fines, you actually increase usage of the library, and we've seen that happen.
Um also just our programming. I would be remiss if I didn't say we have really been focusing on our programming at Fort Worth Public Library over the past really like 5 years. And um what's very exciting about that, and many of you have heard me say this as well, that we
had uh nearly 132,000 program attendees for FY25, which is also our highest recorded ever amount of program attendees in the history of Fort Worth Public Library. And you can read through the rest of
these, but the last one I just really want to highlight um is about our team. This one is provide staff with ongoing learning and development opportunities. We have worked really, really hard um to provide our team some additional learning opportunities. One of these
things that we've implemented is called the Empower Hour. And that gives all folks uh in our department 1 hour a week that they can focus on any kind of development that they would like to do for themselves. Um we've also started a program called Build the Bench, where we're working
with kind of our next generation of leaders in the library department, just working with folks so that they can kind of understand what does it mean to be a supervisor at Fort Worth Public Library, what are the kinds of skills that I need, who are the contacts I would need to know, etc. It's been a really uh popular and successful program, and I'm
very proud of it. So, you might be thinking to yourself, "If the old strategic plan expired in 2022, why are we kicking this all off in 2026?" Um we really wanted to wait till we had some permanent leadership in place for the department. And now that we've got
that um in place, we have a new assistant director as well as a new-ish, I'm not going to call myself new anymore, but I'll add the ish to the end of it, >> [gasps] >> um director. We went ahead and hired uh the consulting firm Berry Dunn in 2025,
and that was back in August. And since then, we've really just been gathering all kinds of feedback, both internally and externally. We really want this plan to reflect the hopes and dreams of our community, and I know that sounds a
little bit um woo-woo, but we really know that if our community doesn't support and like what we're doing, they're not going to use us. And we want to make sure that we're providing the kinds of things that our community is excited about. So, um to that end, we've been doing
quite a few things to gather their feedback and ideas. Uh Berry Dunn did deploy a statistically valid survey um to random households in the city of Fort Worth. They needed 400 responses to um
get to that 95% confidence rating. Um they did receive just a few more than that, 475 responses, and that does provide for about a 4 and 1/2% margin of error. What's really exciting about this, and I hope to come back and just kind of give you a an update just about
this piece, but when they looked at the respondents, they were almost equally distributed between all of our council districts, which was amazing to me. They were also almost distributed totally equally between ages. And they even got
non-users to respond, which was also very interesting to me because you would think um you know, you get this survey in the mail, if I don't even use the library, why would I care to even fill the survey out? But we actually had several non-users who had not been to
the library in the past year fill the survey out, which was great. There's also um currently running through um I think mid-June our Social Point. This is an online survey. We've had 749 contributions um as of May 29th,
so we've probably picked up a a few more since then. I would really encourage y'all to um when you're chatting with your constituents, if they have thoughts or ideas about the library, please um share with them that we have this online uh right now, and and they can access it and provide their thoughts and ideas.
We also hosted our first community task force meeting on June 3rd and we had a very wonderful and dedicated group of folks who came together really in a focus group of just community leaders to share their thoughts and ideas about the
library and our future. Um we also met as a library advisory board last week with our consultant. They provided some wonderful feedback and then we'll be doing the same with our library foundation board members.
There have also been multiple in-person community engagements where the consultants have been on-site. They've been attending different community events or different library events. They've got um one of their engagement specialists also speak Spanish so we're able to you know get some feedback from a couple of
different communities in uh a multitude or well at least two different languages. Internally we formed our formed our project core team back in October. These are our really folks that represent key kind of functions within our department.
Um and they're also subject matter experts. We also have two different employee advisory councils. We have 24 members in total. They represent all different levels of our organization as well as all of our different locations. And then we're hoping that some of you might be interested in doing some
interviews um with us to provide some further uh feedback. I just wanted to share this with you. I think this is really a lot of fun. This is a word cloud that came out of the meeting that happened with one of our um actually with both of our uh employee
teams, our advisory councils. Um you can see they were asked during the session to give um some ideas or some words that they felt described the Fort Worth Public Library. And then from all of their submissions this word cloud
was formed. So you can see books is still the biggest thing and really central, the key idea here, but you can see all of the other wonderful and amazing words um that they're thinking. Maybe not all the words are wonderful and amazing, but there's a lot of I think really great ideas there. Um
and it's really, really fun to get this feedback from our team to see where they're thinking and how they feel about the work that they're doing and how they feel about our department and our organization. So, just to come, we're going to keep the social pinpoint online survey until the middle of June. So, we've got about,
I think, another week or two left on that. Um we'll have our next advisory council meeting with our internal teams on um July 27th. We hope to, again, schedule some city council interviews um and city leadership interviews and then we hope
to do the final reporting and uh have a completed plan for our community and for all of you uh by the end of FY26. Nothing to it. Easy peasy. And that is the update. I'm happy to take any questions if you have any.
>> Any questions for the board? I have one, Midori. Uh first, thanks for the presentation. Secondly, on the um if I can get my terminology straight. Let's see here. On the social pinpoint >> Yes. >> online survey, you mentioned how many responses you've gotten, but was there a
goal going into it that you wanted to hit in terms of responses? >> It's a great question. I think for that one, we'd really like to have as many as we can possibly get. You know, we have a community of over a million people. Bless you. So, we'd love to have
you know, more, but I think um we did we didn't have like a specific number. >> Okay. Is that something that us as council members can, you know, promote and share on our social media to help you out? >> Yes, that would be great. >> Okay. >> I'd be happy to send you all the links if you would like to share that.
>> to me before you leave, I'd appreciate that. >> Thank you. >> All right, next up, I guess uh this is uh going to be a joint presentation, Marilyn and Jared. And uh let's see, Monique, are you in this one, too? Oh, okay. Well, whoever would like to come to the podium and tell us about the Southside
Community Center and National Juneteenth Museum. >> So so great to see you all, Mayor Pro Tem and council members. Um Monique and I are going to uh share uh work together on this presentation,
and then Jared will be after we're done. So we're talking about the Southside Community Center. And uh as Jared will fill you in, the National Juneteenth Museum is going to be constructed on the land that our current Southside Community Center
resides on. And in order to support Juneteenth, we are moving Southside Community Center to Hazel Harvey Peace um center. And in order to do that, we have to do some construction to uh the first floor
of Hazel Hazel Harvey Peace, and then move everything from Southside to Hazel Harvey Peace. We began construction on the first floor in April of 2026, and on May 20th, we had a great time with Council Member Nettles and
community members, where they got to uh hammer through a wall. Um and it was a lot of fun, and then we toured them on the construction that's happening today and explaining where things would be. We expect uh construction to be
completed July 31st, and then that will at at the end, I'll explain uh when we think the land will be ready for Jared and his team. So I'm going to turn it over to Monique. >> Good afternoon.
So we are really excited about this project, especially with Juneteenth coming and we're starting celebrating today. So it's perfect timing. So one of the things we wanted to make sure of and Council member Nettles wanted to make sure as well as we move Southside that
all of the services that we have would remain intact. So we're really excited about that. So we currently are working with all of our program participants. We've started giving them the the heads-up that we're moving. We'll be working on messaging. One of the things
that was really exciting where you saw where we were hammering the wall is it allows us to begin to tell the story right of this transition and get everyone excited about that. So we are working with all the agencies and our customers. So we'll start some outreach and start talking about that and getting
that out. But you'll see our kiddos are having fun, some of our seniors in those pictures and we expect that to transition over to Hazel Harvey as well. So some of the things that we want to make sure that we let the community know and make you aware of is we will continue to have our public spaces as
you know, all of our community centers offer public spaces where you can rent them out. And so we'll have that for public meetings and input. We'll also keep our special events and voting. So voting is really high at Southside Community
Center. It was important for us to make sure that that remains a service available to the community. So that will also be there. And then of course our older adults, we have the Stepping Grannies that practice at Southside Community Center. So we want to make sure that we keep
them active and so we'll have space particularly for them and we're really excited with the opportunity to have a teen program where we're talking about podcast. And then our Community Action Partners program in partnership with NSD will also move over. So we're moving intact
and we're really excited about our new start. >> And then just to wrap it up, so our next steps we will as mentioned will complete construction July 31st. We anticipate it will take us about a month and a half to two months to
actually move Southside to Southside at Hazel Harvey Peace. Um and then we will have a grand opening. The date is yet to be determined, but um I'm sure Monique will get that message out to everyone about a
grand opening. And then the land, once we've moved the land will then be available at 959 East Rosedale will be available for the Juneteenth Museum. And with that, we're done. If you have any questions before we turn it over to
Jared. >> Questions anyone? All right. We're good. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Mr. Howard. Do I get a big introduction, drum roll, anything Mr. >> Whatever you want. >> You've got to go now. Thank you. Well, let me say good afternoon to everybody and thank you for
having me. Uh I am Jared Howard with the forthcoming National Juneteenth Museum and I'm absolutely exhausted. So, they gave me two hours to do this presentation. I told them to give me 10 minutes and I'll give them the rest of time back. Uh we are excited about the future of the National Juneteenth Museum, but before there will be a National
Juneteenth Museum, we've got to celebrate Juneteenth which you all know happens in about 10 days from now. So, uh in the spirit of Juneteenth and all the things that Miss Opal Lee has worked for, happy Juneteenth to this council. Uh let me say before I put my presentation, thank
you certainly to Councilwoman Nettles and to Valerie and their teams who have been working feverishly to support our initiative here and I'm really grateful and indebted to their team for the work that they've done. I have a brief presentation, I'll go through it in seven or so minutes, but I
the the What I really want you to see is a short video. But, let's next slide. Oh, I got it. Okay. I'm told you I'm tired, so let's see. There it is. There is an image of the forthcoming This one right here? Monique? Okay, got you. Uh there is an
image of what is coming to 959 East Rosedale. This is the what we hope will be the final rendering of the forthcoming National Juneteenth Museum on I won't spend a great deal of time talking about the architectural and invite you to our website www.nationaljuneteenthmuseum.org to learn about the architecture, but I will tell you that it is strategic and
intentional. Our mission to keep Juneteenth alive in every heart and in every mind. It is really that simple for us. And our vision is to become the world's epicenter for Juneteenth programs and education right here in Fort Worth. While we certainly recognize
that General Granger and Union soldiers arrived in Galveston to enforce the emancipation proclamation, City of Fort Worth, which happens to be the country's 10th largest and is a part of the soon-to-be third largest MSA in the country, is probably a better place for a number of different reasons, but not
the least of which is the amount of visibility that the museum will get here. You all know that Fort Worth is already a mecca for museums, and we intend to add to that pedigree. Uh we are building a 50,000-sq-ft culture complex. It is not just a museum. By all intents and purposes,
it's a the anchored by the National Juneteenth Museum on the second floor. But, you don't build an edifice like this on historic South Side without addressing some of the issues that exist in the community. Some of the ones that they told us they wanted us to help with were the fact that it is a food desert.
There's a great deal of food insecurity there. So, we're going to have a food hall featuring five local what they call foodpreneurs in the space. And so, right now, as you all are aware, the only restaurant they can sit down and have a meal at on Sunday afternoon after churches a Jack in the Box. And so that
dynamic will change with the National Juneteenth Museum. We've got a 250-seat theater that's going to be included in the construction of the National Juneteenth Museum. It's not lost to anybody here that Leon Bridges grew up in this neighborhood. Kirk Franklin grew up in this neighborhood. People like Channing Godfrey Peoples grew up in this
neighborhood. People like uh Tamron Hall grew up in this neighborhood. The unfortunate thing is they had to go outside of the neighborhood to hone their crafts cuz there wasn't, quite frankly, anything in the neighborhood that would house what they were working on. That dynamic will change. We will have productions. We will have conversations, sometimes hard
conversations, but all of that will happen in the 250-seat um state-of-the-art theater that will be included in the National Juneteenth Museum. At the core of everything we're doing, we are trying to incubate some economic development, right? And so as a consequence, one of the things we're going to do is we're going to incubate
businesses with the business incubator. Uh there are people in this community that have skills that are monetizable. They simply don't know how to monetize though. We intend to bring them into the business incubator, teach them entrepreneurship skills, and scale the businesses that already exist in the community. So we're really excited about
that. One of the things Monique talked about is black box space. We call it black box space. It's for all intents and purposes just space that can be used for any particular purpose. The room can be configured for a birthday party, a wedding reception, a bar mitzvah, a seance. If you rent it, you can do it in
the building. Uh and so that will be also in the National Juneteenth Museum. And one of the things that we promised to the city of Fort Worth and to the citizenry of the community is that when we build the National Juneteenth Museum, we will make space for those at polling location that they love so much. So we're really excited about that.
All right, here is, I'll ask for your discretion, and I know this is a public meeting, and everybody gets to see it, but I will ask that you don't tell anybody at least because you're going to be the first group of people to see what I'm about to show you right now, which is a fly-through render of the interior of the National Juneteenth Museum. So,
can I get a drum roll, please? Thank you. All right, I'm going to try to narrate really quickly, you all. Um All right, this is obviously on Rosedale in New York. This is as if you were coming to look at the National Juneteenth Museum walking up the frontage of Rosedale up those stairs.
>> Hold down for a moment. Okay, now we're good. >> All right. We got Oh, I'm sorry. I was a little ahead of you. All right, so saving my reclaiming my time. Reclaiming my time. Uh this is This is the front of the museum as you walk across Rosedale Avenue and you walk into the front of the building, this is
what you will see. Once you go in to the front of the building, you'll see a stairwell on the second there which takes you up to the second floor. And that will take you to the museum experience. The museum experience is on the second floor. She's going to turn right to see the museum exhibitions and learn all about Juneteenth. Let me catch
my breath here. It's interactive. It is digital. It is incredible. It is going to add to the great lore of Fort Worth museums in a very significant way. If I can pause that there for about 10 seconds. If you'll back me up about 10 seconds.
On that video. What uh the video was about to show was the food hall. So, in the morning, the food hall If you can, go back. If not, no worries. I can kind of talk through it. In the morning, from 6:00, it's about midway through. A little bit back.
Back. Back. There you go. Right there. All right, so this is a shot of the food hall, right? I don't want to pause I don't want to delay the meeting. This is a shot of the food hall in the previous clip you would have seen an area that is for all intents and purposes a sports bar. So, if you come between 6:00 and 3:00 in the
morning, you'll be able to get a cup of coffee. If you come after 3:00 in the afternoon, you'll be able to buy a drink, right? All in the same location on the historic Southside. And there's nowhere to buy either of those. There's It is reflected right there as it stands right now. Keep going. Uh this is the food hall where the food
vendors will be located. That's on the east side of the building. Uh this is the business incubator. There's space for 50 co-working spaces in the building. And there's another shot of the business incubator. This is a theater. As you can see on the second floor, the people are maneuvering around the museum, and this is what the
theater will look look like. It is called the Red Theater. We'll talk about that later. This is the community hall, so it goes all the way around the inside perimeter of the building. Here's a courtyard, and as you look at the roofs, you'll see the Juneteenth star carved out into the roofline. So, that is a quick very quick fly-through of what's
coming to Southeast Fort Worth, and we're really really excited about that. Next slide, almost done. Reclaiming my time. No, back to the slide presentation. To the slide deck. >> Just bear with us, Jared. >> No worries. All right, here we are. Here's a brief
timeline of uh how this idea came in uh to be. It For those that may not be aware, it started in 2015 with a conversation with newly uh appointed city manager David Cook. Right? And David and I started having meetings on alternating Mondays, and he asked me a
couple of questions about what would it take to make Fort Worth more attractive to people like me. I am a marketing guy both by nature, it's the way God made me, and by trade, both of my degrees are in marketing. and so I did a focus group to answer that question. And the thing that that triggered me was we need
a coal corridor for cultural engagement. Right, the city of Fort Worth is now surpassed a million residents, as we all know. 19/20% of those are African-Americans. That means there are 200,000 African-American people in the city of Fort Worth. But there is not a very strong
African-American footprint, cultural footprint in the city of Fort Worth, and the city's too big not to have that, right? One of the beautiful components of a beautiful city is the cultures that exist, the microcultures that exist. That hasn't always been the case in Fort Worth, as you all know. The historic Southside was the epicenter of black
life in the city of Fort Worth historically. With Mr. Madison McDonald and hit the investments that him he made, the beautiful thing about this community is that the stewards of the community have done a yeoman's job of preserving the history. So we do want to honor the things that they've done with
the work that we're continually continuing to do. There's a timeline. If we have our druthers, we will demolish the Southside Community Center with the community's blessing, I'll add, this fall, and we'll start commence construction shortly thereafter. Almost done. Next slide. Oh, I got it, don't I?
There we go. All right, so here are four program pillars: preserve, celebrate, expand local economies, I want to put a a note there, and then promote the culture. Here are our core competencies competencies as an organization, if you will. Right now, at this particular
moment, we are focused on getting this building constructed. Ms. Opal, God willing, will be 100 years old on October 7th, and we want her to experience as much of our work as she God will allow her to. Partnerships, and that includes any and everybody. Certainly, we are grateful for the partnership that we have with the city
of Fort Worth, ongoing, and then the programs. Speaking of programs, this in another week or so, we're going to launch our Freedom Vibe program. I'll tell you more about that in just a second. Let's talk about this for a quick moment. Our we had the Oxford Oxford economics
to do an economic impact study for us and the byproduct of that study that that we learned in that study and through that study that more than 100,000 people will visit the National Juneteenth Museum every year. The key component of that is more than half of
those people will be non-Fort Worthians, which means they will be coming into Fort Worth to visit and to spend money. And another component, 25 of the people that visit will stay overnight in the city of Fort Worth. And so we're really excited about what this will do for the local economy. We think it will have
more than $20 million of annual impact and we're confident that we will produce more than 180 jobs per year. Capital program, we're at $52 million of $70 million campaign. If I use old math, I don't know about the new math, but in the old math, that's more than 70% of
the way there thanks to all the people you see on the screen. We do have a strategy right now that will get us to our goal that includes philanthropic partners, corporate, private, government, and other programs. You all are probably aware that the great state of Texas gave us a $10 million appropriation in the last legislative
session session. So really excited about that. Last thing and I'll be out of the way and take your questions. We have the Freedom Vibes Festival coming up starting on Thursday of this week. Freedom Vibes is our effort to effort to be present before we are present. We can
ill afford to wait until the museum is built to be present in this community because America is grasping for Juneteenth programs and content. And if you really want to be the epicenter of all of that, then we need to be active now. And so the byproduct of that is we've got an 11-day festival that will cause people to converge on the city of
Fort Worth to participate in all these great things that we're doing. What you see on the screen right now are some of the programs. We are tapping into the eras. We are bringing our homeboy Kirk Franklin, who is from Fort Worth, home to help us celebrate gospel music on this Sunday at the Potter's House of Fort Worth on
the 80 on Friday and Saturday, June 19th and the 20th, we will have what we believe to be what we've been advised will be the final two concerts at the Fort Worth Convention Center Arena. And so, we'll be sending the arena away in style. This will be if we have our
our druthers, it will be an annual festival that will annually cause people to come to Fort Worth during Juneteenth. I think that's my presentation. Let me pause and see if there are any questions for me. >> Any questions from the board? Committee? Grace? >> I just have a few questions. >> Yeah, please.
>> No questions. Thank you, Jared, for the presentation. I really want to just take an opportunity, I know as we get closer and closer to really thank staff, the city manager's [snorts] team, David Cooke and Jay Chapa of continuing the work. We had talked about this one
Jared came about um using the Southside Community Center as a National Juneteenth Museum. But what was very important to myself and the community is that Southside Community Center is a historic community and it did not need to lose
its vibrant, its voice, or its statue in the city of Fort Worth on the Southside. And so, we was able to work with city management to get not just a facility, but a upgraded facility that has an elevator and has police presence and other staff there.
And well as voting. And so, I really want to thank the public private partnership with the city of Fort Worth >> [clears throat] >> and with the National Juneteenth Museum. This is things that we can do when we work together. So, I really want to just really thank staff for all the work that you guys are doing and I look forward to
opening up Southside Community Center Heavy Harvey Peace as well as the groundbreaking of the National Juneteenth Museum in historic Southside. So, thank you guys for working together. Let's continue the work. >> Anyone else? >> All right. Thank you, Jared. That's a really exciting presentation. Can't wait
to see the finished product when it comes down. >> Thank you for your support. You've been there from the beginning and we pray that that will continue. Our commitment and our vow to the city of Fort Worth is that you will be proud of the work we do. So, we're pretty >> It's been challenging, but I think the work product is really going to show for it. You know, it's going to be a really
wonderful addition. >> Indeed. Thank you. >> Yes, sir. Um on the co-working space, uh are you going to have a mentor program for those startups? >> Yes, very much so. So, we are we are goal is to be soup to nuts in that
business incubator, right? To take the, you know, 10-year-old budding entrepreneur and the 75-year-old person who's been in business for a very long time. I'm a former employee of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce. So, I was uh and one of the things I tried to do, I led a pillar called entrepreneurship and small business. When I was there, I
worked really, really closely with Goldman Sachs to bring their 10K SB or 10,000 Small Businesses program to Fort Worth. Because Fort Worthians that participate have to go all the way to Dallas to do so and I think that's a sad indictment on what is now the 10th largest city. There's no way we should have to go 40 mi away to participate in
such a program like that, but those are the types of programs uh that we intend to bring to the uh incubator once we open. And the muse- for just for everybody's benefit, the museum is not going into the business of running a business incubator or running for We will partner with people that are already doing these things that are
subject matters in their own respective space. So, we just want to be the house where all these things happen and beautiful thing is those become revenue sources for the museum, right? >> Awesome. Thanks. >> Thank you, sir. >> Thank you, guys. >> All right. Any future agenda items from
anyone? Going once, going twice. Seeing none. We adjourn at 1:40. Part: 2
Okay, good afternoon and thank you all for joining us. I will call our joint for city council and for employees retirement fund board meeting to order. Today is Tuesday, June 9th and we greatly appreciate the effort by the retirement board staff and our board
members for taking time to attend today. This time I will call on chairman Doug Wilson for a few opening remarks and then we'll go around the table and make introductions before we start the substance of the meeting. Thank you to Doug. Thank you, mayor. We are honored to be here with you guys and uh believe
that we've got a very positive report to bring to your attention today. Uh the state of the fund is doing well um with Linda Webb, our new executive director, definitely getting some traction on board with us. Um Mary Elshot, I mean,
just the team is as in good a shape as I've seen it since I've been appointed. and the one vacant seat that we needed a mayoral appointee. We are proud to have our brother David Cook fill in those shoes. David has hit the ground running.
He's done his orientation and we've got him appointed to committees and Katie hold the door. He's he's off to the races. Anyway, things are going well. So, thanks very much for allowing us to join you today and we look forward to the the rest of today's report. >> Thank you, Doug. I appreciate that. And
David, you don't have the excuse of not knowing what you're getting into because you know exactly what you were getting into, right? Um that's great. Well, I'll may I'll start over here, Andrea, if you don't mind kicking things off and we'll go around the table with our um our board appointees first and then council members want to tag along, they can.
>> Sure. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Andrea Wright, uh the vice chair of the retirement fund. I've been on the board for eight years now and I represent 50% of the active general employees. >> Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Michaela
Barry. I've been on the board my first year and I represent >> very well. >> [laughter] >> Thank you, David. Thank you. >> Thanks, Wanda. >> Uh, Reggie Zenino, CFO for the city.
>> That was just our reminder to turn our microphones on so they can broadcast appropriately. Thank you. Um, and Linda, before I turn it over to you, we have our council members are here, some of which you've gotten to meet before. Some of them, this is their first joint board meeting. And we've started this tradition years ago. I think it's an important update. So, the partnership
between the city of Fort Worth and our retirement fund on behalf of our employees and really heavy cooperation, especially on Reggie's part on on the city finance team. So, Dr. Hall, if you want to introduce yourself, please go ahead. On behalf of District 6. >> Hi, Dr. Mia Hall. Uh, city councilwoman
for district 6. And obviously I think I celebrated my one year. It's coming up. Well, elected one year on the 7th. One year is coming up. >> Thank you, Mia. Michael >> Michael Crane representing district 3 on the city council. >> Carlos, we heard from you earlier. Go to
Janette. >> Sorry. Janette Martinez representing District 11. Chris Jameson, celebrate or representing district 10. And I'm about to sell celebrate my one month. >> Elizabeth Beck, District 9.
>> Macy Hill representing district 7. Great. >> Okay, Linda, I guess I can turn it over to you at this time if you want to kick things off or or move us into our first presentation. And remind me now, how long have you been with us here in Fort Worth? >> I started
>> Yeah. Um, I started in August of 23, so nearly three years now. >> That's great. >> Um, we're really excited about the agenda today. Um, we think we have some some news the city's going to really like hearing. Um, we've made some really a lot of good progress um, in the last year and I think you'll be able to see that from the reports that you'll be
hearing today. So, we look forward to sharing that information. >> That's very helpful. Thank you. I think our first agenda item is going to be kicked off by Joseph Newton, who's our pension market leader and actuary with Gabriel Rodair Smith and Company. I might suggest these are usually dense presentations with lots of great information. If you have questions or
comments, let's do that along the way rather than writing to the end because it can be kind of hard to keep track. Um, and Joseph, I'll turn it over to you. >> Great. Yes, thank you. I agree. I agree with that. If you have any questions, ask them as you have them because sometimes these presentations build on on previous information. Um, and as uh
Linda just said, this I think you're going to see this is definitely a year of highlights on the outcome of the pension plan. It's a it's a process. It's a it's a long process. And so any given year, you can't expect to go from, you know, poorly funded to really really
wellunded. It's it's going to take a while. But you can see all of the positive metric improvements here today as we talk about it. The main thing that's happened actually is just just a basic increase in active membership. So active members have payroll. the
retirement plan receives all of its contributions, its revenue into the pension plan based on how much payroll there is. So when you act when you add active membership to the pool, that increases that revenue that comes into the pension plan, but it doesn't necessarily increase what's owed from
the pension plan in the same proportion. Um, one of the big items we're going to talk about today is called the unfunded acred liability, which is kind of the debt that's owed to the past uh related to the pension plan. that's almost entirely associated with current retirees and current active members
either that are eligible to retire or close to it. So adding a bunch of new people at the the low end of the service schedule doesn't change that unfunded liability that that past debt. Um all it does is increase the revenue and so that really helps. You can see here um just
this last year we had a 10% increase in overall uh people which means we actually had a 10% increase in revenue just from that one item. Also salaries for individuals uh were up and so we had actually about almost a
14% increase in total covered payroll uh from just one year to the next. Our assumption is that's going to be about 3% a year. So you can see that's a significantly higher than than the assumptions with this has actually been a trend now for about three years. We've had a 20%
total increase in active membership uh in the last three years. Six and a half% of that from the MedStar recent uh transition, but you know, a lot of it you can see twothirds of it is just from a natural increase in active membership. And we'll show you the impact a little
more specifically as we go through it. In addition to that, the investment performance of the fund has been favorable, a 14% return in fiscal 25. Uh and if you look at it over a little bit longer term, 7.6% compound return over the last five years we assume is 7%
return over time. So that's in excess of that. So that means there's extra money being generated in the fund to help pay off that unfunded liability. And so as a result of that, how long we expect the unfunded liability to be paid off has now shortened to 24 years from
this year. Uh that's four years sooner than last year's expectations. Last year, we're expecting it to be paid off by 203. Right now, if all assumptions are met, that should be paid off by 2049. So, a four-year improvement in that one number
there. And that's a six-year improvement compared to two years ago, which was projecting out to 2055. So, uh that's that's very good news. And we're actually almost all the way back in line. And we'll talk a couple of slides about the uh the pension reform that
occurred back in 2018. actually set a timeline and it was a 30-year timeline from 2018 and if you count forward in time, we should be at a 23 right now. Um, these last few years as we've been talking about it, we've been pretty far off from that timeline. Now, we're
within, you know, we're 24 compared to a 23. Um, and in fact, if we could measure down to months, it was like two months uh from being a 23. So, very, very close to being back on that original timeline, which is again a very, very positive outcome. So, why does adding increased membership
help finance the unfunded sooner? I just hit on it a little bit just to kind of go into a little bit more. It's it's similar to, you know, the unfunded liability. Think of it as a debt. Think about it as a mortgage that you may have as an individual. um when you're 25 or
these days 30 and you get that first mortgage um you know it it it hurts out of your budget a certain amount but over the next six or eight years as you get pay increases that that mortgage payment hasn't changed and so it's getting easier and easier to pay that amount.
So, it looks like a lot like that in that our revenue stream is going up because we're adding these active people, but that debt that was owed is not going up uh in the same way because again that that debt is mostly owed to current retirees and people eligible to
retire. Of everyone that we hire, you get 36% of payroll coming into the plan. about half of that, 16% goes to pay for the benefits for that new person, but the remainder of it can all go to pay for the the amount that's owed to the retirees and the to the past. So that's
why it really accelerates uh the funding. It can also be offset by salaries to continuing active members, but that has an offset. If you give an individual that's currently got 20 years of service a salary increase bigger than expected, it does increase our revenue, but it also increases what you're going
to end up paying that person. So it's kind of an offsetting idea versus a new person. It's all just new revenue. So it's very good. So this is just to give you an idea of of of why that's had that much impact. This is a new slide this year and it's a little busy. This is
mainly my uh you know I'm not that great of an artist here. This is what I could come up with. But this is showing you this history since 2017 2018 for anyone that was around to kind of give you a little bit of a history of how we got to today. The blue line on here is what's called the funding period. That's how
long it was expected to take to pay off that unfunded liability. You can see here back in 2017 that was never um and in fact it was projected that if you go long enough we would it would deplete the assets of the trust fund. Um and so that was found to be unacceptable and so
there was significant pension reform with the city council and the uh retirement board at that time which included benefit modifications. It also included direct increases in contribution rates and also some risk sharing provisions which we'll talk about. Um and so you can see coming out
of that reform, it was expected that the funding period would drop all the way down to 30. And so that's that 30-year clock from 2018. That was expected. However, before that could even be finalized, two things happened by 2018.
One was a n a minus 4% return on the assets of the trust fund. So that pulled it back a little bit. But the bigger item was actually the retirement board through our recommendations lowered the future expected return on assets from seven and a half down to seven. And so
that extended out that period of time. Now, as in all assumptions, assumptions are only assumptions. Uh what's going to happen? Reality is what drives the where we're going. And so since you've outperformed the seven since that point in time, we've pulled back a lot of those years
and gotten closer to back on that original timeline. So that's what you can see here in the blue dark line is what that funding period has been. As we move through time on a smooth basis, on a market basis, you can see it's more volatile, but it's tracking in a similar pattern. Through 2022, it was mostly
pretty consistent going from 44 down to 36 about, you know, a year per year. However, since then, those last three years, you can see a lot of acceleration going from 36 all the way down to 24. That is why I have the top line on there, which is the active headcount.
You can see from 2017 to 2022, the head active headcount was basically the same uh 6579 to 6656 and then now in these last three years has gone up that 20% to 79.83 83 and that has been the main
driving force to bringing that funding period down to 24 years. Uh the average market comp return of 9% has also been a big part of it. Joe and apologies for interrupting and anyone can jump in here. I think this slide is important especially for those
of us that weren't serving on the council at the time. These were very difficult decisions that required actually two bites of the apple on the pension and one important employee vote. and it took careful consideration and communication from city staff to
employees in that voting process and then great management and investment strategy at the board. So, this is a good news story. I'm sort of curious from your perspective as an actuary what you're seeing in other peer cities across the country because I do think it
maybe reflects a financial strategy that was maybe different in Fort Worth that other cities probably benefit from. Yes, it was uh it's you've had a very similar experience u since 2018 uh from most plans the well no not most plans but lots of plans have done very well since
2018 but a lot of it's because there's been a pretty big shift in I would say the attention to and the urgency towards making sure these pension plans are being funded set a strategy and follow it um and you're not the only one doing that and so we're seeing a lot of
improvement here and that's where you can see the discipline coming through the page. Um because I mean don't do this but I say you know one thing you could do is hey we're better than we were three years ago let's slow down right like uh no don't do that that that would be a we would be just moving
backwards uh at that point. Um but yeah your risk sharing contributions the way those automatically adjust to get uh when things did fall behind you didn't just leave the contributions it it brings those up to try to make up and get back on track. Uh very positive uh
reform there. Um, now I will go ahead and bring it up now because part of your job as an actuary is to make sure that you always leave a downer in every conversation you ever have with anybody. Um, and so, uh, we have to talk about risk a little bit, right? And so there's always risks and
there's a lot of times the obvious ones, but here, you know, the main story on this page is that active headcount growth. That's so what I always like to step back [clears throat] and say well if I can have 20% increase in headcount in three years are there worlds will be
get contraction of headcount right and so uh this is just to say that if if there were to be contraction in headcount over the next five or eight years back to closer to that 6600 number we would basically likely unwind back to a similar time frame as we were three
years ago. Okay. So just to give a graphic representation of what that funding period means when we use that term. Uh here you've seen the la the red line on top is the liabilities. So that's what was owed to the membership at that point in time. And this is in millions. So
that 5 that's five billion500 million there. That red red number. The red in the back that's solid is what the actual history has been. So you can see the liabilities were a little lower and then at 2018 we had that jump up. That's when the investment return assumption
changed. Um, and then you can see it's been steadily growing since. So the idea here is not that we're going to stop the liability from growing because you have membership. Membership are earning new benefits. The liability should be going up. We just want to make sure that the assets are there to cover those
liabilities. And so here you can see in the last decade the assets have gone from 2.2 billion up to about 3.2 billion. That's how we get to the current unfunded liability. So, we haven't made a lot of progress yet on that unfunded liability. However, you can see from now going forward, we begin
to have progress and begin to move to where the assets cover those liabilities in that 2048 time frame. So, that's how we come up with what's called the funding period. Another point here is compared to a mortgage or debt, any other debt the city has, the city could
just write a check and get rid of it and be done and walk away, right? Um, in this case, it's not like that. If if I owe you a $100, I can't just give you the $100 today. In a retirement plan, the best I can do is start giving you a dollar a month. And so, what we do is
want to securitize that debt. We would like we want a $100 over in this other account so you can show the membership, hey, we're good for it. The money's right over here in this account, and when you get to retire, it will be there to pay your benefits. So, that's what we're trying to do is cover that liability with with the asset.
Now, of course, there's going to be sensitivity. The main sensitivity is going to be to investment performance. And so, you can see here that funding period changes by between four and six years uh depending on if we outperform by about half a percent a year in assets or if we underperform by about half a
percent in assets. So, even if it's the returns are only six and a half% going forward, we still we still should have improvement. It's just going to take a little longer. So here is a slide we've had in the last few years. I like to keep this kind of
stuff uh to show the history and to be accountable to what those previous decisions were. So here the the light blue dotted line is what that projected unfunded liability was from 2018. You can see that because that's when that assumption change occurred. The
reform occurred and so you can see the unfunded liability was expected to grow to be about 2.8 billion in 2040. That was the original and that was that 44 year time horizon. The red X's are what the actual has come in at. You can see it follows that light
blue line pretty well, a little bit ahead of schedule, but it's really now the higher revenue is going to turn this over and begin to pay this unfunded liability off quicker. Uh the difference between those two lines is $3.9 billion
in total savings. um again from this accelerated revenue that we're getting from these higher headcounts. Um so very very positive message and outcome here. Okay, let's go. We'll go ahead and talk about this one for a second. It's
probably the last year. We'll keep this one in the deck. Um but it's one of those things where it's a it's telling you where you're going before you start to see any results. The unfunded liability by itself only matters so much, right? You say, "Well, we have a two, you know, we have a two billion
unfunded liability." Okay. Well, is that a lot? Is that a little? Like, you have to compare that to something, right? You know, as for the state of Texas, that wouldn't be very much at all. Um, but, you know, for the state of Fort Worth, it's a certain amount. And if that was for, you know, Bridgeport where I live, that would be catastrophic, right? And
so, relate putting it in some sort of relationship uh matters here. And so what the unfunded liability over payroll is saying, okay, how big is that debt compared to uh the our revenue stream or the the payroll that's supporting that debt. It's kind of like a debt to income ratio for banking. And so what we're
wanting to see here and what you have been seeing here is improvement. We want it going down. And so you can see we've actually gone from around four and a half times payroll down to three and a half times payroll just in the last seven or eight years. So that's a lot of improvement in this metric. And this is one of those things is once this one's
continuing to go down, eventually everything has to come with it and start to improve as well. Um, and so you can see here the same we expect that to pay off in the same 2048 time frame. This is just to make the point where you do use smooth assets in all of these
results. We do that not to hide anything but basically try to have a longer term view. uh because any point in time, you know, on any three at three o'clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday afternoon, that's when you do the market basis. Well, that can change a lot by the next Tuesday afternoon. So, what we're trying to do here is just smooth that out. So,
we use a five-year smoothing process. And you can see that the red line and the blue line track each other. Um, but the peaks are higher in the red line, which is the market, and the troughs are lower in the red line as well. Right now, we're sitting in a situation where there's actually more money in the bank.
the market value is higher than our current smooth result. And so what that gives us is one of two things. The next few years, if things go well, then we'll get to recognize all that extra money. And so it'll accelerate this process even more. Or if we have a couple of
struggle years, there's money there to help offset that and and keep us on the same path we currently expect to be on. So, uh it's a good good position to be in, but it's just to make the point that we do use um a smooth value in all of our numbers. So here to walk through because this is
a turning point you're at actually. Uh this is how did the unfund liability change from last year. The red numbers there are things that go up. So the first thing that happened was normal costs. That is the value of new benefits being earned. So your active employees
worked a year so they earned another year of benefits. That was about $112 million. that between the the active members contributions and the cities. Now there's also interest on the unfunded liability itself those 163 million and so then you put
contributions against that just like a mortgage 272 million comes all the way down and doesn't quite cover the interest and the normal cost if you see here. So if you do if you're on mortgage, you would expect some principal to be paid, right? So you pay the interest and then some principal so
that next year your unfunded liability is lower. Here you can see we weren't quite there. Uh $3 million of uncovered interest. Um however, starting next year, if we do the same chart, we should cover it should cover
the whole thing and be a positive three or three three or five million. So this is a pretty big turning point in the life cycle of the plan of turning over till we now expect the unfunded liability to start coming down every year. Um the things on the the right the asset performance and how the
liabilities grow those are the things we can't predict. Those are just happened to us. You can see here this year the assets outperformed decreasing that unfunded liability by 36 million and then the liabilities because salary increases were a little higher than our historical expectations that added about
9 million. So overall on a net basis we did decrease but it took the asset performance to make that happen. But again it's a very positive position. It's called positive amortization and it should begin to have I would be surprised if your bond raiders for
example don't comment on this factor as it occurs because this is a big this is one of those things that they really look at. They want to see you getting to where every year you're expecting to be paying off some of that unfunded liability. Okay. Okay. So, how did the end fun or how did that fund impairing change? We
were at 29 last year, expected it to go down one. Again, the asset performance brought us down an extra year. That membership growth brought us down a total of three years. So, that's how we get from the 29 down to the 24. Okay. So you guys do have a quite
complicated setup uh in how some of the different funding and benefits work and it can be confusing because sometimes the same words are used to mean different things uh throughout the process. So this is trying to uh iron
that out and be a little clear in what the different numbers mean. So the first one and we bolded it because it's the official funding period. That's the one we've been talking about the 24 years that takes everything into account. There's nothing off the table on that basis. We we take all risk sharing
contributions, ad hoc colas when they're supposed to kick in or built in and we run that out. When is the unfunded liability projected to be fully eliminated? That's 24 years. That's what's going to be used by the pension review board in Texas to determine are you meeting their guidelines. That is
that is the official number. There's another number, the baseline funding period, and it is in statute and used for determining when ad hoc colas will turn back on. So, we have to do an another estimate where we assume the risk sharing contributions stopped. So,
if we didn't get any more future risk sharing contributions, how long would it take to pay off the unfunded liability? You can see that extends from 24 up to 32 years. So those e that extra 4% of pay that we're getting in risk sharing contributions, you know, takes eight years off the
funding period alone. And so that's 32 years. The ad hoc colas do commence when that gets down to 28 years after a cola has been given. So that probably means we have to get to 27, maybe as low as 26
before a cola is given. That way we give the cola and it push us back up to 28 and that would be passing the test. So, we're getting quite closer. You know, two years ago, we thought this was two decades away. Um, now we're getting to where you're, you know, five or six years away from likely coming back on
with that hot colas. There's another item that's similar, and that's the amortization period that actually turns around and says, "No, we're going to fix the period." And that is based on that 30-year period from 2048. That's the 23 years from from this
year. And to meet that, you can see we would need a total of 4.09% and we're getting risk sharing contributions of 4%. So that's how close it is from actually being meeting the uh ADC. And I guess here's what I'll also
go ahead and throw in. Um based on ordinance, let's say next year we determine that 4.09 is not necessary, that 3.9 would be enough. um that wouldn't do anything immediately in the
ordinance. It has to be two years where that's true that the full 4% is not needed and then the city council would be able to opine on whether they want to go down to that 39 or stay at the four. So it there's not an automatic lowering
does have to measure twice cut once situation. Um but you can see here we're actually very very close to that. So just to wrap up, the unfunded liability did improve uh unexpectedly. We did not expect it to go down, but it did, which is great news. 2.41 billion
down to 2.38 billion. Funded ratio, which is just what percentage of the liabilities are covered with assets in the bank right now, improved from 55% to 57%. We we anticipate that will continue to improve as we go forward. And then that
funding period, how long until that unfunded liability should be paid off was 29 years last year down to 24 this year. Membership growth being the main story again for the third year in a row. So any questions or further comments on
on those results? >> Questions or comments for Joe? >> Okay. Thank you for your presentation. We appreciate it. >> Thank you guys. Next up is U. Derek Dagnen who is presentation on the investment performance of the fund as CIO for the
retirement fund. >> Good afternoon everyone. Uh thank you to the mayor, the council, and our board for having me today. I'm Derek Dagna. I'm the chief investment officer for for your uh retirement fund. All right. Ready? All right. So, today
we'll uh we'll go a little bit over uh the plan u the investment performance and and the investment outlook following up. Uh Joe here, GRS done has done a great job for us. Uh I know the the materials, you know, a little dense and and this material is too. So, we'll try
not to repeat uh too much information. So, so our retirement plan works very similar to any any sort of defined benefit plan. And you know, you have contributions from from the employees and and the sponsor. Uh we have a board that oversees the the the program, sets
the governance and and policies and and and reviews actuarial information. And then staff administers the plan. The two main functions are paying the benefits and and and investing the assets. And you know, we all have the same ultimate goal of of getting the checks in the
mailbox on time. So are are any like Joe mentioned the unfunded liability that's a a key issue for for any uh retirement plan you know so our contributions plus our investment returns need to eat our equal our liabilities uh the board and and city
council have implemented a very effective plan to reduce the unfunded liability and and as Joe mentioned we are ahead of schedule at this point uh and the reason why this is important to the plan sponsor is in many ways it it relates to the bond rating uh and and
for any bond rating agency when they review um a m municipality or a state and and and rate the the entity they're going to look at the pension plan they're going to look at the unfunded liability and they're going to look at the contribution policy and those are the key inputs into their decision. Um
so our investment program our investment program is is over is is governed by an investment policy which is established by the board. Uh the key aspect of the investment program is is the strategic asset allocation and that is the asset allocation that's designed
to achieve the target return and our target return is 7%. Um we manage the program the program is highly diversified. Um it's an institutional uh investment management program, a global exposure, liquid
stocks, liquid bonds, and and then riskier, illlquid alternative investments. That's what makes up uh what makes up the program. and and the investment program is is crucial to the retirement plan overall because for any sort of pension plan typically 60 to 70%
of the benefits that are paid the dollars that go out 60 70 60 to 70% of the dollars that go out are from the investment returns on the assets. We'll talk a little bit about the uh calendar year 2025 econ economy. We'll
talk about markets uh and then we'll move into performance and an outlook going forward. So uh 2025 was a a very uh resilient year. Uh the global real GDP growth was better than expected came
in at around 2.9%. Emerging markets led the way. India was really strong up seven and a half, China up five. Um when you go to developed markets like the United States, United States led developed markets up around
two 2%. Um it was a real choppy year. Uh and so and there was significant shifts u in sentiment, investment sentiment, business sentiment, consumer sentiment shifted from positive to negative to positive. But ultimately it ended up
being a good year. Um global inflation was pretty stable. you pick the country, it's going to end up somewhere between two and three and a half percent. Um and and labor, a lot of other things remain solid. Um what was
different for for 2025 was the US Treasury and and the yield curve. So we have a normal yield curve today or at the end of 2025 and that's really the first time since 2022 and that's important because the yield curve is the foundation of all finance.
the the big another big shift in 2025 was artificial intelligence. It shifted from being a big idea into being an economic driver and a driver of markets and it it was a clear driver in in the US economy and global economy.
When we shift to markets, um markets were volatile similar to the economy, but we ended up in a really good place. So global stocks were up around 22%. Emerging market stocks led the way up 34%. Um when you look at risky bonds, high
yield bonds were up 9% in the US and global bonds outperformed. Uh when you look at safe assets like core fixed income, they were up around 7% in the US with the international markets outperforming. And then cash still gave
us a nice return of of around 4%. So very very strong year um in in global markets uh in liquid assets like stocks and bonds and uh with the with international markets outperforming US
markets for for 2025. When you shift to more alternative investments the picture is more mixed. Commodities did not uh were were performed ve very unevenly in 2025. uh private markets uh performance
was was fairly uneven. Uh private debt performed well, infrastructure performed well, but private equity was was hit or miss and and real estate continued to be a challenge. U and so when you look at our portfolio, the biggest parts of our
portfolio, stocks and bonds did very well and that's why um we have really good um performance in in uh 2025. Uh one thing to think one one thing to consider is the link to artificial intelligence. It was it artificial
intelligence impacts several different asset classes. It's not just stocks and and when you look at companies or or or different bonds um or even real estate, you you have to be concerned with what
what is the impact of artificial intelligence. Is it a tailwind or a headwind? Because you absolutely saw it in 2025. it continues to be the case in 2026. So for our investment performance for the fund, your fund ended with a balance of about $3.3 billion. This is the
market value at at the end of December. Um our asset allocation was overweight stocks. Uh we were underweight private equity. The one-year return was was over 14%. It was driven by by stock well it was driven by stocks for the most part. You
can see stocks were up. Our stock portfolio was up um just under 22%. For for the year, but we really had good performance across the board. Every almost every asset class is doing what it's supposed to do. And that's not
usual. So usually you have some good and some bad. And this was kind of a a good story for the year. It was kind of all good. So So that's very positive, but but maybe not repeatable. Um the next slide we'll look at the longer term. So if you look over the longer term,
uh, three, five, 10 year annualized net returns, they exceed that 7% target. We're outperforming benchmarks and we're in line or or better than other pension funds from a peer standpoint. Today, if you look at the fiveyear
returns for the overall fund, we're now kind of in in the top quartile versus pension funds. uh that's a very positive outcome uh compared to uh 2020 or the years 2010 through 2020 where we were in the bottom quartile. And really what
that says is that says that that um you know this board and the the investment committee of the board have done a really good job of of setting up a program that can that can achieve uh the best of what's out there in the opportunity set because that's peer
reviews aren't always like a great comparison but it does define really what the opportunity set is and and so we're we're doing really well compared to the opportunity set. So over the long term the positive um sorry is there a question?
>> All right. So over the long term the positive contributors um would be would would bas basically most asset classes um uh but really you know anything risky has done well for us. Um and we done well on an absolute
basis but then also on a um relative basis vers versus benchmarks. On the negative side, uh real estate's been tough for about three years. Uh it continues to be uh kind of perform undertrend. And then our stock portfolio, we're
doing well overall, but but we're kind of underperforming benchmarks and and so we've got some room to improve there. So that's uh something we're definitely working on. Um and then while we mentioned 2025 being driven by global markets rather than US markets um
historically over the long term the US has really run uh driven markets higher uh compared to international. >> Council member Hill >> Derek when you talk about peer um funds that you compare us to are those cities are those the size of the fund can you
explain that a little bit? Yeah, it's um uh basically every US pension fund over the over with a size greater than one $1 billion. So, uh and the the issue with peer comparisons is the longer the time
frame, the you don't always have the same uh friends in your in your in your playground. And so, uh so there's a it's a it's a count of around a 100 pension funds. Okay. So, looking forward
for this is economic and market outlook uh 2026 and 2027. Uh it's good news. So, we look at IMF, the International Monetary Fund. We look at World Bank and and look at their global
real GDP growth forecast. And so 2026 3.1% 2027 3.2 too. This really breaks a a kind of a multi-year cycle where um all of these, you know, large major
international um uh banks had had assumed positive GDP growth but decelerating GP GDP growth. And so this is the first time in several years where there's actually accelerating GDP growth in the forecast
that recognizes uh the the strength of the consumer. It recognizes the resilience of economies to to kind of face some of the challenges that economies have had you know not just the US but you know Europe and Asia. Um what we have today is from a market
standpoint is very positive uh sentiment uh from an investor standpoint, consumer standpoint. Um and so what what comes with that is it was is very rich um valuation. So stocks trade at all-time
highs essentially. Uh bonds are credit credit spreads are very tight and so that means that you know risky assets are priced with a lot of optimism today. Uh the flip side that the caveat really is the bond market. If you look at the
bond market and the US US bond market in particularly in particular you have uh long-term Treasury yields are at a basically a 30-year high at this point. And that shows there's some exa the bond market sees some elevated risk. The bond
market sees sticky inflation that that maybe the stock market's looking through and and that's a real problem. That's a problem for the US. It's a problem for any sovereign nation with a lot of debt which is basically every sovereign nation. Um, so, so that's that's really
the caveat to to to this optimism on this on the risky side and the and the safe part of the market is saying, "Hang on a second." And so that's what we're we're uh looking forward. We don't see a lot of risk for recession in 2026. Um,
but but in forecast are very positive and and markets have priced in that positive growth. The next slide is um a a 10-year outlook for for our fund. Um we use Sarity Partners are is our investment
consultant. Uh every year they publish what's called a capital markets outlook. It has uh a 10-year forecast for returns for all kinds of different asset classes. And so there's a table that shows our target allocation. That's the strategic asset allocation. And then the
the return for those different asset classes. and kind of simple math and you end up with a blended return. Blended return uh 10-year forward annualized return of 6.7% today. You know, our target seven. So, that's bit of an
issue. No, no real change from last year. The the forecast a year ago was almost identical to to what it looks like today. So, so no real change on the blended uh expected return. Uh so to achieve our target we have to run a a a
higher risk portfolio. That's that would be the requirement to to hit the 7%. That opens us up to increased volatility, liquidity risk and then um risk of a of the impact of a draw down like when when the bad news comes the fund draws down as has a negative month
or a negative quarter and uh and we have to recover from that. So that's a key risk today. And and so the reason why we're really focused on this 6.7 and can we get to 7.0 is because every time we're every 25 basis points of a
shortfall on on that total return below the 7% target um it kind of equates to around a 2% increase in the in in what Joe talked about the ADC the actuarial determined employer contribution rate and you know clearly we need to avoid
that. So in summary, you know, we've executed on efforts to reduce the unfund li unfunded liability. Um the in the and the decisions made in this room with this group with this these two this bodies have been effectively implemented
and they're working. Um 2025 was volatile uh but but ultimately ended up being a really really strong year with the fund up 14%. Um and so and sitting here today there's kind of expanding
economic outlook uh optimism really and a lot of that optimism is already priced into into risky markets. Um and so going forward in the long term, the outlook is is kind of similar today as it was a
year ago for our fund and uh and frankly we've we've benefited from very strong stock market last last year but even the previous two years. Um any questions about the fund, the investment performance, economics,
what we're doing, what we're not doing? >> Yeah, Council Flores. Uh thank you for that presentation. I I want to go back to I guess a few slides on this uh your uh outlook you know when
it comes to uh global equities. Um I was trying to look up some projections on um the emerging markets you know for India and China and basically my question is the administration is currently going through a lot of rigorous uh
renegotiations with India and the projections show that there's going to be a decrease there. I really don't know what's happening with China but in general I guess we could expect an overall decrease in uh what those projections will be for 2026. Would that
be a correct statement? I mean, still room for optimism, right? But a decrease nonetheless. >> So, u the question on on on markets, global markets, uh and emerging Yeah. policies as it retains the trade policy. Okay. Um
the China and and the US are in a um a significant competition for to try to compete or at least dominate or compete on artificial intelligence. Um
India has uh massive demographic tailwinds um that that are that are driving it and India is also um modernizing their legal system in a lot of ways and that's one of the major
drivers for the uh the performance of of India. Um the another major driver is currency. Uh so all almost all international foreign currencies appreciated versus the US
dollar in the last um really 12 months because of uh the US uh tariff policy and the impacts of of that. And so the the currency appreciation is is part of the driver of emerging market um stock
performance and emerging market bond performance. and and that that doesn't necessarily go away because of of trade policy. Um and but your trade policy is is certainly a driver,
but our trade policy has been pretty um a bit uneven, right? It it changes um periodically more more so than it used to. And so that makes it very difficult for investors to to make long-term
decisions about um China or India versus the US. But I would say one key thing about China is the valuation of of assets is a lot lower than in the US. So so there's there's room to grow for uh
for asset valuations in China and that's one of the main reasons why it did so well. >> Thank you. Any other questions or comments from board members or councel? No. Thank you for the presentation. Okay. At this time, we are required by
state law section 5.11 of article 6243i of the Texas Revised Civil Statutes Code to determine or address any of the unfunded liabilities and discuss the performance of the fund. So that is the amount of time we have allotted here. Are there any other discussion or
follow-up items from the presentations today? Not even you, Jim Camp. Can't believe it. >> 32 meetings this year. >> You're you're meeting out. You're good to go. Okay.
Anyone else? If not, Doug, I'll turn it back over to you. Um, and we can request future agenda items and then close the meeting out. >> Microphone up. See, there you go. Jim, go ahead. >> I want to make Everybody understands
what was saying for the financial markets that you take Wall Street%. So, it's going to be a very challenging environment moving forward, but it's something we take very
seriously. We talk about it every meeting and every mention that question understood that it's going to be a very challenging environment again moving forward versus what we've seen over the
last three years. >> Thank you, Jim. Any other questions or comments for Jim or others? Very helpful. Um, I'll just say on the closing, thank you for all of you who uh spend your time and attention to be on the board. I know that it can be tedious
and very timeconuming and we are much appreciated because I think as a reflection of the performance of the fund, having professionals and folks that really do care um and including our employee representatives, we know that it's an incredible amount of time on your part, too. So, we really do appreciate your service on the board. If
there are no other future agenda items or comments from council or the board going once going twice sold, we will call this meeting adjourned and see you next time. Thank you.