09-25-1974 Special Meeting
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MINUTES
NQ 1063
SPECIAL MEETING
A Special Meeting of the City Council was held in the City Manager's Office on
Wednesday, September 25, 1974, with the following members present: Councilmen
Oswalt, Byrd and Schroede1. City officials present were: City Manager Hopkins,
City Controller Fleming and Chief of Police Tynda1. Others present were the
Messrs. H. Czech, R. Carden and Dr. H. Russell Fogler.
The Mayor advised the purpose of this Special Meeting was to discuss a report of
Dr. H. Russell Fogler, Associate Professor, from the University of Florida,
concerning the General Employee Retirement Pension Trust Fund; that the second
order of business was to discuss and take action on the Tentative General Fund
Budget for the fiscal year 1974-75.
Mayor Smoak extended Dr. Fogler an official welcome to the City. After a few
brief remarks on the report, the floor was given to Dr. Fogler who explained his
report, how he arrived at it, what he was trying to show and the recommendations
he wanted to make. He went into some detail on how retirement plans had been
arrived at, how conditions such as the present inflation, rise and fall of
the stock market and kindred and like circumstances affect retirement funds.
Dr. Fogler recommended what he considered appropriate percentages of investment
in different types of securities, such as stocks and bonds and stressed that to
have successful investment plans considerable attention has to be given to the
trend of the market and every effort should be made to have a diversified list
of stocks instead of being satisfied with only a limited few stocks. Also he
considered it wise to stay with stocks listed on the Exchange. In view of this,
he suggested consideration might be given to listed stocks. He suggested, too,
that investments should be looked at by industry rather than individual stocks
and explained his reason for this thinking.
After Dr. Fogler completed his comments on the report, the Council members were
invited to ask questions, which he answered in considerable detail. After the
questions and answers, Mayor Smoak brought up the idea of retaining Dr. Fogler to
review the IIRetirement Trust Portfo1ioll from time to time and to give the city
his comments and recommendations. A fee was discussed and it was agreed that
Dr. Fogler will advise City Manager Hopkins, by letter, an exact fee for this
service. The Mayor than thanked Dr. Fogler for appearing before Council.
The Tentative General Fund Budget for the 1974-75 fiscal year was reviewed,
with revisions as discussed at work sessions. Considerable discussion was held
on some of the items, after which motion was made by Councilman Schroede1,
seconded by Councilman Byrd, and unanimously carried that the Tentative
General Fund Budget for the Fiscal Year 1974-75 be adopted.
M. Dollar, Secretary