Committee on Retirement and Benefits Administration.

• Author: Belarmino, Michael
• Position: COMMITTEE UPDATE

With great anticipation, after two years of virtual meetings, several members of GFOA's Committee on Retirement and Benefits Administration (CORBA) finally got together (albeit in a mix of in-person and virtually) for the 2022 Washington committee meeting in late January 2022. While the meeting was still far from normal, it was close enough to reenergize CORBA for its work as the committee moves into the latter half of the term year. This update will focus on the two GFOA best practices members revised and what the committee expects to tackle in its near-term work plan.

Best practices and advisories tend to be reviewed for several reasons. The circumstances or conditions might have changed from when the document was originally developed, for example. Or in some instances, governments learn from responding to the conditions discussed in the best practice or advisory, so GFOA takes that information into account and may decide to take a much stronger stance or to reflect current practices. The two best practices the committee recently updated are discussed below.

Governance of Public Employee Postretirement Benefits Systems. Approved by the GFOA Board in 2010, this best practice recommends that the state or local government or other designated governing entity establish rules of governance for its postretirement benefits systems. These rules of governance should define the key elements necessary for trustees and other fiduciaries to fulfill their responsibilities, in accordance with fiduciary standards. The best practice then goes on to make several governance recommendations. No changes were made to the overall recommendations or stance of the best practice. But upon review, committee members felt several points needed to be fleshed out to add more clarity to the document. For example, the discussion on governing expectations and roles was expanded to add several considerations as governance best practices.

Investment Policies for Defined Benefit Plans. Approved by the GFOA Board in 2017, this best practice recommends that defined benefit plans establish and adhere to a formal investment policy to regulate and monitor the system's investment program. Further, this policy should be viewed as a long-term governing document. Similar to the best practice on Governance, no changes were made to the overall recommendation or stance. But after review, the committee made revisions to improve the overall flow of the document, as well as separated a few...