you you you you you you I'm going to go ahead and call the meeting to order. City of News and Murder Beach Police Officers Retirement Plan, Pension Board of Trustees, Initial Disability Hearing. Today is Thursday, April 10th, 2025. It is now 1 p.m. The meeting is called to order. You want to call the roll, please, sir? Paul Marwielson. Yeah. Jason Reap. Here. Ron Nebert., here Brendan Mechtel, here Mark Seherman's. Here we have a quorum. Public comments anyone here to speak on behalf of the public? Anyone? Seeing none we'll move on. New business, initial disability hearing for Mr. Robert Claudio. So, trustees through the chair, if you're comfortable, maybe what I'd like to do is just kind of set the table, maybe just talk about where we were, how we got here, what the process would look like today, discuss just kind of some formalities in terms of standards of proof, burdens of proof, a palette rights, et cetera. And then if there's no questions from our member or Miss Oliver, behalf of our member or from the board, then at that point I would turn it over to our member and Miss Oliver to present their case to the board. And after they're done presenting, if the board has any questions obviously, then at that point the board should make those questions or comments of our member or through his attorney. And then the board can kind of discuss what the results are. But ultimately at the conclusion of today's proceedings, I would look for one of three motions. The first motion would be to approve the line of duty or the service-connected disability benefit application as presented and discussed. The second motion could be to deny the service-connected or line of duty disability benefit as presented and discussed. Or a third possible option motion would be to table the matter. And really, you can table the matter for a number of reasons, right? You need more time to deliberate. Something came up during the hearing that you need clarification on, you know, more documentation, some follow-up, whatever the case may be. If you do choose to table, the board would meet again and essentially pick up where it left off, right? And again, I would ask that we were looking for one of those first two motions that I described. Okay? If the board denies the benefit application at this process, at this stage, the member has the right to appeal that decision, in which case the board would reconvene for a formal administrative hearing. Today, we call this an informal hearing and it's a bit of a misnomer. It doesn't mean that it's any less meaningful or any less impactful and in this final. It's really just to distinguish from a formal administrative hearing, which is very similar to a trial, right? And so at a formal administrative hearing, there's a court reporter present, the board would engage a special counsel because you all, the trustees, you essentially sit as the judge and the jury in these kinds of cases. And so myself, as your attorney, as the board counsel, I would be conflicted from advising you all on due process and admissibility of evidence and what the status of the law is, right? And then also taking an advocacy position, right? So the board would hire a special counsel to essentially argue why and denial is appropriate. Our member, as of today and always has the right to have an attorney. And obviously they would argue why the benefit should be granted. There would likely be depositions taken of witnesses or treating physicians. So you can see we're a former administrative hearing. It's a lot lengthier, right? You have to schedule these things. It takes a lot more time. And it's a lot more expensive. And so we try and address just in terms of efficiency, expediency. We try and address the application first through these proceedings, through an informal proceeding. And then obviously, again, if there is a denial, our member has subsequent appellate rights, right? So they would appeal to a formal hearing. If at the conclusion of the formal administrative hearing, the board would deny the benefit application. Then our member has one last opportunity to appeal that decision. And an appeal in that case is made to the circuit court in your sitting jurisdiction. And at that point, really, the decision is out of the board's hands so to speak. The judge who's assigned the case will receive a transcript from the formal proceedings. They'll receive obviously all the evidence that was introduced and admitted. Each side would write a brief to the judge, right? On one side why it should be granted. On the other why it should be denied? The judge may or may not request oral arguments. It's about 20 minutes, 10 minutes a piece. And then the judge would issue a recommended order back to the board. And at that point it would be our recommendation that the board adopt or approve the judge's recommended order. Absent some sort of extend your circumstance, right? The judge misclosed the law, some piece of evidence, some smoking gun, comes to light that the judge was not privy to, but absent something like that, that would be the conclusion of the proceedings, and that decision would be final. So just in terms of process, and most importantly for our member does everybody understand you know what what we're doing and more importantly what appellate rights are available for purposes of this benefit application. Question on the motions Pedro if the affirmative motion to approve fails does that constitute denial and likewise if the affirmative motion to approve fails, does that constitute denial? And likewise, if the affirmative motion to deny fails, does that constitute a prove? No, it's just not. It's a good question. So there's no negative consent, so to speak. The motion would be either to grant or to deny, and that motion would need to pass. So a failing motion does not mean or imply the counter or the opposite. So if a motion is made to approve and it fails then there needs to be a second motion to deny. That's, yes sir. Okay. Yes sir. Yes sir. There would be just, similarly a motion to deny or a further discussion, you know, however you want to go about it, but you're correct. There would need to be one motion made in either respect that would be passed by the majority of the board. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. And so you heard me talk about kind of just generally the process here. Let me drill down a little bit into what we have here, what you all have, and our member's responsibility. So you heard me mention that our member has the burden of proof. And so what that means is, in this instance, in these kinds of proceedings, our member is required to prove to the board by a preponderance of the evidence by 51%. A greater weight than not that they are entitled eligible for the line of duty or service connected disability benefits as applied for. So I know we're working with cops here and you guys are probably more accustomed to the beyond a reasonable doubt standard, which is kind of the highest burden afforded under the law. But that's typically reserved for criminal cases, instances where an individual is losing freedoms or some type of property right, like a forfeiture for example. But in these kinds of proceedings, the bar, the burden is lower in that it is preponderance 51%. Okay. What we've done before you and in preparation for today's hearing is we've prepared these disability binders and inside there is a copy of the member's application. There's a copy of the questionnaire, which we include for all applications. There is obviously the necessary HIPAA release forms and everything like that. You have included relevant provisions of the state statute as well as your local law, pertaining to specifically the disability benefit eligibility therefore, you have a number of medical records and reports. It's about 1500 pages I think if I recall correctly, but you have all of the pertinent medical records with respect to the disabling or the alleged disabling injury or illness only, right? You don't have a full medical picture of everything going on. We've requested all of the pertinent documents records from treatments, hospitals, urgent care, whatever the case may be, with respect to the disabling injury or illness that's being alleged for purposes of this application. You also have a copy of Dr. Hall's IME report independent medical examination. And this is a requirement of state statute, as well as locally, for your plan, for any disability member, that the board engage in independent physician, independent from our member, independent from the employer, independent from the board, to evaluate the application to evaluate the member, to evaluate the claims of disability, and to provide the board with their professional opinion. And so you have that as well, included in your materials. We also have, I call it a cheat sheet, but it's titled Issues Before the Trustees. And this is really meant for purposes of, I think, guiding the discussion, both on our members part, if they choose to, but as well as on the boards part. And it really is meant to be something of a flow chart, right? So if you can answer or address each question in the affirmative, then you kind of go along the line, right? So did the applicant suffer an illness or an injury, right? Yes, you go to the next one. Was that injury or illness suffered in the line of duty, right? Directly caused by the performance of the African duties as a police sergeant for a newspaper in a beach, right? Again, if you answer the affirmative, did the illness or injury cause a disability? Yes, is that disability permanent, right? And this is, it has the, and I'm going to borrow a term for workers's compensation, has the member reached maximum medical improvement. And so for those of you familiar with worker's comp, it's not as involved as worker's comp, different set of laws, different set of standards. If you guys are familiar with it, worker's comp, delas, sign a percentage rating, and there's all kinds of formulas involved. For our purposes, really, it's a little bit more basic. It's really is the member as good as they're going to be, right? Or are they going to be worse? Is their condition going to worsen over time? Or is it going to improve, right? Have they plateaued? Or is the prognosis that they're going to get better with treatment and medication and surgery or whatever the case may be, or potentially is it going to be worse? This doesn't mean that there is some experiments procedure out in Sweden or some stem cell research that's being done in Finland. This is under a kind of standard, except Western medical practices has everything been done done really that can be done, and what is the prognosis? Where is this individual in terms of their ability to work? Right? And then kind of leads you to the last question, which really encompasses all of the requirements, right? And so is the applicant wholly and permanently disabled from rendering useful and efficient service as a police officer, as a police sergeant, as a police officer specifically for the city. And I mentioned that and I emphasize that a little bit because this is a job specific disability benefit, right? So in theory, this member can perform any other job under the sun, right? Except for be a police officer or hold a position whose duties are very similar to a police officer. And he would be entitled to the benefit. So again, presumably if you can address each of those previous four questions in the affirmative, that would likely lead you to answer the fifth question in the affirmative and a granting of the benefit application. If, however, somewhere along the line, right, there's a no, then that would potentially lead to a denial of the benefit application. And then obviously, we can illustrate, and we're required to by law, we can illustrate to our member, we can show to our member where the application fell short, where they did not satisfy their burden, where they did not meet their burden, whether it was a line of duty, whether it was total and permanent, whatever the case may be. And that would be the basis for the denial. So does everybody, most importantly, I remember in Miss Oliver, but does everybody understand kind of the materials that we have? This is a substantial company, that I know I'm throwing a lot of legalese at you, but does everybody understand what we have before us, the materials that we have, and I think most importantly, what should be relied upon for purposes of the hearing today and discussions and testimony, et cetera. Any questions? Yes. Yes, okay. And Mrs. Oliver, do you guys, I can't see you, but yes, I'm sorry, I'd cut you off. All right, no problem. I can see you though. Attorney Herrera I just want to review the dog. Excuse me, ma'am. Hey Phil can you put the camera on the podium please. Thank you. Can I? I'm sorry. Phil, are you back in the control room? It's... I'm sorry. I don't need to see Mrs. Oliver. Not that I don't want to but I don't need to see them. I didn't mean to apply. I was just. We're going to need it for the record though so we that's fine. Oh, there you go. Sorry. Thank you. I look at myself there right? So, Phil, but at least it's warmer in here now, right? I'm sorry. It's on. It's on. Okay. Got it. I'm sorry. You were saying something about the records I I could. Yes. Can everybody hear me now? Perfect. So I said at least I have to look at myself when I'm talking now which is much more difficult but thank you because it's warmer in here now since he turned the air off. So yes in regards to the record I just wanted to make sure before I started my opening statement that we insured that we had all the documents. I know there was a problem uploading the documents. I don't think that was intentional, but when I was reviewing the pension book initially, we brought it to the administrator's attention. And I think there was a second set of documents that were uploaded and then I additionally provided to the administrator and to attorney Herrera three additional documents that I believe are at the end of the pension book so I just wanted to ensure that all the board members were aware that there were additional supplements records. Yeah I just like take a moment to verify that everyone on the board saw these documents in the packet already. Yes. Yes. Yes. I did receive them. I did see them so I can confirm that for my own. Yes. Yes. I just wanted to make sure because some it came in parts and I'm not the most technical person either. So the other thing I just wanted to confirm, Attorney Herrera, Mr. Claudio was medically separated according to the termination letter. So as he was medically separated, I believe the total prong based upon the gains case is met. So I just didn't know if you wanted to articulate that to the board as their advisor. I'm happy to, but I will let you do that as well. Sure, absolutely. So trustees and I thought I think we have the determination letter is part of the packet. Yes, it is. So if you guys will take a look So what what essentially When you when you're considering these disabilities and I think you kind of heard me go through through the issues or the questions You're really looking at three legs to the stool so to speak right so right? So you have a total, a permanent, and in this instance, it's service connected or job on the duty. And so, if a member has been medically separated from their employment under floor statutes, there's a guiding case, the gains case, that essentially held that the pension board would be a stock, would be prevented from finding that there is not a total disability, right? So in other words, total permanent work related, right? The total portioned analysis, leg of the stool, has been answered or addressed on your behalf, right? By the city's termination of the member for medical reasons, right? So, and the public policy was essentially right, you can't fire somebody for not being able to do their job medically, and then the pension board find that they don't have a total disability, right? But however, that case does not address, and there are still remaining questions or issues for the board to decide with respect to the other two legs of the stool, right? With respect to the permanency aspect of it, and with respect to the job related or duty related portion of the application. So again, in other words, the finding is totally and permanently disabled from underuse sort of as a police officer. The determination finds that he does have a total disability. Now the questions remain for this board to address and for our member to prove ultimately, right? Whether that disability is permanent and whether it was job related. Does that make sense, everybody? Yes. Okay, perfect. So, if there's no further questions of me from anybody, I remember or the board through the chair, I would at this point turn it over to Miss Holle. questions of me from anybody, remember or the board. Through the chair, I would at this point turn it over to Miss Oliver, and she can maybe address the board and present the case with respect to the disability application. And then if there's any questions from the board or myself at that point, then we'll turn it over after they're done. Is that fair? Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. Can you hear me okay? Yes. All right. I am here. Tanya Oliver on behalf of my client, Robert Claudio. And we are here as Attorney Herrera in detail explained the processes and did such a great job in explaining the processes before you as a trustees. And you have a really important decision today. And while I will tell you that I attend a lot of pension hearings, not one of my clients want to be standing next to me to be here in this position. It's not what Mr. Claudio wants, and it's not how he wanted to end his career. So he is asking this board to look at the totality of the evidence in the pension book and in our arguments here today, and he is asking you to grant a service connected pension. I always appreciate Attorney Herrera's issues before the trustees. It's page five of your pension book. He always gives such a great roadmap for your U.S. trustees to follow. So I'm going to be referring to that road map several times during our conversations today But first it asked did the applicant suffer an injury or illness and I believe the preponderance of the evidence what your standard is is that yes He suffers from PTSD and mental health to was it suffered in the line of duty and I also will indicate to you the preponderance of the evidence will say yes not only by the medical evidence provided for the board today But also by statute there is a statute in Florida law 112-1815 That was enacted just for first responders for law enforcement firefighters to protect them and protect their mental health. Because of the arbitrary issues with mental health, it's not like you can see a fracture of a broken arm or a broken leg that renders somebody in unable to perform their job duties. It's mental health. So in order to protect first responders, this data Florida and acted Florida statute 112.1815 and we are going to discuss that statute in detail but basically if you meet the triggering criteria in that statute it's presumed to be work related. So regardless of other issues Regardless of other issues going on, it's presumed to be work related. And three, did the injury cause a disability? On March 5th of 2024, from Mr. Claudio, it did cause a disability in the fact that a treating physician indicated he could no longer work or perform his duties as a law enforcement officer. He sought treatment and helped through the city and received treatment and care through workers' compensation. I would also commend the city for appointing Dr. Figueroa. The Dr. Figueroa is one of the leading psychiatrists for first responders. He treats a lot of first responders throughout the state of Florida. And he found that Mr. Claudio could not return to work and not only has he continued that treatment to present in workers' compensation he continues to have the opinion that it would be a liability or a detriment to return Mr. Claudio to the service of a first responders specifically a law enforcement officer because of his mental health. The next criteria on the road map is the applicant suffering from a disability that is permanent. Again, that answer is answered in the affirmative. By his treating doctor, Dr. Figueroa. Dr. Figueroa has continued to keep him on a work status. So even if Mr. Claudia wanted to return back to work for the city of New Smirno Beach right now, the doctor is prohibiting for him from doing that. And five, is it permanent and total? We discussed the three legs as Attorney Hara pointed out. Is it permanent and totally disabled? Yes, it is permanent. His diagnosis is going to continue His doctors recommendations have indicated that he cannot return to service and any capacity and the total prong is met based upon his separation from employment So after going through that road map. I want to talk about Mr. Claudio for a moment. Mr. Claudio is 45 years old. He was born on August 12th of 1979. He began serving the City of New Smirno Beach on January 5th of 2010. Prior to serving as a law enforcement officer with the City of New Smirno Beach, he held the position as a law enforcement officer with a city of Eddwater from 2006 to 2009 and left to come to this position here at the city of New Smirna Beach. Prior to working for the city of Eddwater, Mr. Claudio was in the army from 1996 to 2006. He served in active combat as an infran, infran, introphy man and he was honorably discharged. As I indicated, he was medically separated. I've provided that documentation to you so not only do you have it in the book but you have it in hand. On July 18, 2024, after his doctors indicated in the workers' compensation system that while he is not at medical maximum improvement, no amount of treatment would restore him safely to performing his duties as a law enforcement officer. At the time of his separation, he had served for the City of News, Summoner, and Abige for 14 years, six months, and 13 days. Again, I want to talk about mental health and first responders because it's very specific for first responders in Florida Statute 112.18. And that there's several criteria that must be met. And that criteria includes triggering events. And those triggering events include seeing for oneself the death of a minor or a death that involves gruesome bodily injury or grievous bodily injury. And in the time leading up to the actual date of accident, and the date of accident was March 5th of 2024, that's the date when he was no longer working. However, their triggering events, contemporaneous and before that. In February of 2024, Mr. Claudio was on duty acting as a supervisor on the traffic homicide where someone that had been known to him for many years had passed away. He also had a triggering event about six months before the date of accident where he responded to a suicide, where an individual shot himself in the head and that resulted in grievous bodily injury because there was brain matter and that's one of the criteria for the triggering events. So he had two triggering events leading up to his inability to work as a law enforcement officer and that meets the criteria in Florida's .112.1815. Also in your book you have records and lot of records, and I apologize for the 1,500 pages that you had to read of records. But it's a very large record. But there's a lot of important documents in there that I think that I want to bring your attention to. First of all, when Mr. Claudio was hired with the city of New Smirna Beach, he underwent a comprehensive pre-employment physical and that pre-employment physical is found on page 52 where he was found to be fit for duty. But that physical also includes a psychological evaluation that was conducted by one of the psychiatrists for the city that is found on page 77 and Dr. Edmund Bartlett who completed the background and evaluation found him fit for duty when he entered service here with the city of Newstomernabeech. There was no evidence of any mental health, there is no evidence of any PTSD diagnosis and we know that he had served as a law enforcement officer and in the military prior to his hire with New Smirno Beach. However, when he was hired, he was clean and he was fit for duty. Also in the records are the VA records, the VA records document some mental health issues, including a mental health event from 2020 that Mr. Claudio handled internally and privately on his own. The agency was aware of that mental health event as it occurred when he was employed with the City of New Smirnovich. However, he went through the VA, received treatment and was released back to return to full duty as a law enforcement officer and had been working in that capacity for a couple of years prior to March 5th of 2024. Those records, those VA records and medical records of treatment are also contained in the pension book. I want to turn your attention to the IME by Dr. Ryan Hall. And Dr. Ryan Hall performed that IME, and I'm getting to just note that even with the best intentions and being a recognized psychiatrist in the area, I'm not sure that Dr. Hall understands all the details involved with the first responders and the statute of 112-1815. And I would also note that I believe he went outside the scope of the pension book specifically in looking at his his report on page 34. He indicated he did his own Google search. On page 64, he referenced his claim notes. And also he references the Volusia County Clerk of Court records in his IME reports. Those records I could not find contained in the pension book anywhere. Obviously I can't find a Google search, but I couldn't find all those records he was referencing in his IME report, which made me reach back out to the pension board administrator saying, are we missing some records and that's when we found some additional records. But those records are still not included in any of the records that I found in the pension book, nor is the Google search. So I believe that Dr. Hall went outside the scope of his IME by doing that, which is prejudicial to Mr. Claudio because of his ultimate findings that he believes that this is related more to the Internal Affairs investigation. Regardless of whether it's related to the internal affairs investigation or not is irrelevant because the statute and the roadmap that Attorney Herrera has given us showing that it's directed to the performance of his duties, statutorily he meets that criteria. And even in the time period leading up to the time he no longer could work, we could see some erratic behavior. It's documented in some of the memorandums and some irritability, both of which are signs for PTSD as a result of the statutory or triggering criteria and 112-18-15. So based upon that, he would meet the criteria regardless of the IA investigation or not. Importantly, FDLE has cleared him of any misconduct or not sustain those charges. And I did provide the no cause by FDLE. I believe it's in your book as well and incorporated into the record. So looking at Dr. Hall's records, I believe his focus was not on the statute or the benefits of mental health and first responders. I believe he was focused on things outside the scope of Mr. Claudio's mental health. After receiving Dr. Hall's IME report, I sent that IME report by written correspondence to Dr. Figueroa, whose Mr. Claudio's treating workers compensation psychiatrist. He is still his treating workers compensation psychiatrist. He is still receiving that treatment under workers compensation and has continued to do so since the inception of his date of accident of March 5th of 2024. So what Dr. Figueroa says and he articulates it very well in his last paragraph. paragraph. It's his opinion that doctors Hall's evaluation was influenced by information regarding the internal affairs investigation and displaced the focus of PTSD and mental wellness for first responders. His ability to perform as a police officer was affected as a result of his PTSD from seeing those triggering events. Dr. Figueroa continues to hold the position that Mr. Claudio is permanently and totally disabled and that it's service connected based upon not only the statute but by his performance of his duties and responding to scenes that involved grievous bodily injury and deaths of minors as indicated by the statute. So as Attorney Herrera indicated in his opening comments, there's three legs that must be proven here today. The total leg is already proven, right, of the wooden chair. The total leg has already been proven. So we have two legs remaining. Is it permanent? Is his condition permanent? So Dr. Figueroa says there is nothing that can restore him back to full service as a law enforcement officer. only only can he not be restored back to duty, but to do so would be a liability to the city because of his mental health as where it is today. And is it service connected? The answer to this question can be answered in several ways, but yes, it is service connected related to the performance of his duties, but it's also statutorily defined and cannot be apportioned by pre-existing conditions. So I would ask this board to find that he is permanently disabled, that he is totally disabled, and that it is service connected because the preponderance of the evidence establishes that he has met his burden. Thank you, Miss Oliver. Questions from the board at this point? I'm good. Question on Dr. Figger Rowan's statement in his paragraph, the longer paragraph near the end there, the third from the bottom. Says, I have had patients that have been able to recover enough to go back to work while others have not. Unfortunately, there was no opportunity to treat him long enough to ascertain that possibility. So to me, that implies that he hasn't seen him enough to make a determination. But then he contradicts himself. Mr. Robert Claudio, on my professional opinion, is totally impermanently disabled from performing duties as a police officer. So at one point he's saying, I haven't treated him long enough to say if he can be cured or not. But so at this point, I'm going to say he's permanently disabled. So the possibility exists that if he has further treatment with Dr. Figueroa, given the further opportunities to treat him, that he may change his opinion. So let me address that in two parts. First, my interpretation and reading of Mr. or Dr. Figueroa's report is indicated at on July 18th of 2024. He had not had sufficient time to provide enough treatment in order to render an opinion that he could return back to work. As of right now, his opinion is he cannot return back to work. He is permanently and totally disabled and This is another year out. Okay, so from July of 2024 to April of 2025, he is rendering the opinion that he cannot work as a law enforcement officer. The second part of that, I believe, is taking care of in your ordinance because if he is able to get to MMI and return back to work, there is a provision that allows him to return back to work, should the city accept him as a law enforcement officer for the city of New Smirom Beach. Any other questions on the board? Yeah, you mentioned in July that I was a workers' comp report that said that he wasn't going to be able to reach MMI. Okay, I just maybe I can't cover it, is it in the packet? That says that. So, I'm not sure I understand your question, but my understanding at this stage, he has not reached MMI in his workers' compensation claim. The DWC forms, which were in those supplemental records that were sent or not uploaded originally by the pension board administrator, show his continued not work status. And there's a little box indicating yes or no, he's that medical maximum improvement. My question for that is, if he's not at medical maximum improvement, is there any treatment that would restore him to full duty, which is what is the statute calls for? And Dr. Figueroa indicates there's nothing that will restore him back to full duty, no matter what treatments provided, his recommendation would be that it's permanent. Did he explain why they would not work? Any treatments would not work. Did Dr. Figueroa explain why there would be any treatments that would not work? I believe he does so on the second, the back page. The first, the second paragraph, he indicates that his PTSD is severe enough to disable him, precluding him from valuable and effective service as a law enforcement officer due to the traumatic experiences that he witnessed while working at New Smirno Beach Police Department. He goes on to say that he does not believe that he can be restored as a law enforcement officer. My last question to be like what efforts were made. I saw a lot of pharmacological like prescription but based medications being issued and stuff like that but there's other treatments. Yes. So Mr. Claudio has complied with and workers' comp has authorized all treatment that Dr. Figueroa has ordered including counseling and including talk therapy including treating with Dr. Figueroa. And has that been performed? Yes. That's all been ongoing since the first appointment in June of 2024. Since Dr. Figueroa is first appointment in June of 2024. Okay. Since Dr. Figueroa's first appointment in June of 2024. Okay. I know. There are some other type of techniques while I'm asking besides counseling. Obviously, you're talking about counseling, but there's other techniques that are available. I just didn't know if any of those were tried. Other than counseling and medications. I'm not sure what techniques that you're including, but I do believe that he has complied with everything that has been asked for him to do by Dr. Figueroa and in Workers' Comp. And I also know that Workers' Comp has authorized, again, that's a credit to the city. Workers' Comp has authorized all treatment protocols that Dr. Figueroa has recommended. So your answer was is all of the treatments that Dr. Figueroa has tried. The question I guess would be better stated has Dr. Figueroa exhausted all opportunities for treatment to reach a potential reversal of his symptoms. Yes, I believe he has exhausted all. Does he say that, or is that your belief? That's my understanding because I know the workers comp system and the pension system are two different systems, but in workers' compensation, they have a recommendation section for additional treatment. And in that recommendation section, he is not recommending any additional treatment. But we can't utilize a work comp standard. We're using the standard under the pension statute. So the pension statute says we have to make a determination whether he's permanent. So if we can't definitively say we've exhausted all treatment opportunities. Is he really permanently disabled? Well, I believe that you can say that he is permanently disabled based upon the totality of the circumstances. If you're looking at all the treatment that has been exhausted for him, which has not been mild, there's been a lot of treatment exhausted for Mr. Claudio, right? And then you have Dr. Figueroa saying, I've exhausted all this treatment. He is still not at MMI. And no matter what we do, I still would not render him useful and efficient service to return back as a law enforcement officer. So you're just saying that he cannot come back as a law enforcement officer, total unpermanent from being a law enforcement officer. From a law enforcement officer. And that's related to the presumptiveness of the Florida Stat. Is that what you're saying? Well, the finding that he cannot return as a law enforcement officer is related to the pension statute. The criteria is found in Florida statute 112.1815, which presumes work relatedness if you meet these triggering criteria. And your diagnosed by a psychiatrist with PTSD. And you explain the triggering criteria as I recall and there's a couple of three instances that meet that standard. There are actually 14 criteria but as it applies to Mr. Claudio there are three significant ones including witnessing the death of minor. He observed a 15-year-old who was killed in a motor vehicle accident with brain matter. He also witnessed the suicide, which had brain matter and also of a homeless individual that was known to him also passed away. And that injury was also gruesome in nature. So, good, I'm sorry. Those relate back to the the Florida Statute for presumptuous based on that. Based upon that statue, yes. I didn't go through the other criteria because they weren't applicable. Right, okay. I didn't want to look at that. So without regard to any actual triggering factors that may have been as Dr. Hollow alluded to, it may have been another triggering fact. Just because the circumstances of his career, he experienced one of these statutory triggering factors. Whether it was the actual factor or not, we still have to accept that as the triggering factors. I was just saying. That is what I am saying. And I would also say that, I mean, common sense would tell you. He served in combat, right? So he probably saw a lot of gruesome things in combat. He also worked for the city of Edgewater. I don't believe he saw anything gruesome there, but even if he did, it wouldn't matter because the statute says you can't apportion or parse out one injury from the other. So the answer to my question was yes. The answer is yes. Okay. Yeah. I got a quick question. What is the impact of the medical termination in terms of his ability to return to work? So the impact of his medical termination is that stool with three legs that Attorney Herrera spoke about we have already met the prong of total disability based upon that termination. So I guess back to Ron's question about and the officer's question about have we met all the treatments. I guess a miss, maybe I'm not linking the two here. It seems to me that the first leg being met eliminates a question about further treatments. I think her response is that since he's saying he's permanently disabled and he can't be treated, he's implying that all treatment options have been exhausted. Is that what you're saying? Yes, I am saying. Without it being explicit, we have to read between the lines. Yes, I am saying that, but I'm not saying that he's done with treatment, right? He's going to continue to treat with Dr. Figueroa, but no matter what Dr. Figueroa does, Dr. Figueroa's opinion is nothing I do is going to restore him to work. Well, we'll never take him up to the level where he can qualify as a police officer. Correct. So, my question is, based on his mental condition, he's no longer allowed to serve as a police officer in the state of Florida, correct? Anywhere. Okay, so has he surrendered his license to be a police officer at this point? I don't know the answer to that, but I don't believe it's required in order to grant the disability. I think by FDLE standard, his ticket so-called is still eligible. His ticket would be eligible, but he wouldn't be hireable by any agency. And how is an agency supposed to know that if he still holds a license? Well, if you were to apply for a law enforcement position, I would assume that the employee agency would do a background check and he would contact the city of New Samarna Beach and while they can't disclose medical reasons, they can certainly withdraw his pension if he applies for a law enforcement position. If I'm not mistaken too, somewhere in Dr. Figaro and I don't know if it's in this letter or not, I can't remember, but there was some statement he made that when he was talking about treatments that by virtue of the medical termination, the ability to return to work was eliminated by virtue of that document as a police officer in New Sumer Abiche. So that I guess supports also that first lady you're talking about. And to me that kind of answers that part of the question as to whether it's ticket with FDLE, I don't know that that's an issue for us. Yeah. Well, Angis, so you know, like if you look up on FDLE, it says medically separated. So I think that would cause any employer a question to figure out why was he medically separated if he's applying to be a law enforcement officer. I would agree with Palmer. The issue the the eligibility of his so-called FDLE ticket isn't really that relevant in the discussion here. I'm just wanted to clarify some things. The recommendation of Dr. Figger-Roa that we possibly conduct another IME, I understand that he says it's because he focused on some of the external things involving IA's and newspaper articles, things like that to influence his, Black with a better word, several places in the IME where it references that he thinks this may be triggered by those events rather than PTSD related to the job. As I understand it doesn't matter. I mean, the figure row can say what he wants in Senate. And me what he's saying is the next doctor who evaluates them can't take into account the other issues that we're going on with the investigation into his alleged misconduct. It does, those things are irrelevant, whether those were the true triggering effects. The fact is, is that he experienced statutory triggering effects. Doesn't matter, just because he did it. And I guarantee there's 90% of the officers in any agency have witnessed those triggering effects, witnessed those triggering events. So therefore, our hands were tied. Any future IMEs, doctors, hands are tied as well. I just found it interesting that the conflicting nature of the IME versus the medical exam done by Workman's Comp. And between the two doctors, how the one doctor's claiming that the Mr. the doctor hall is very professional, very well recognized, and such has accolades yet he takes exception with his opinion and is recommending a further eye on me. I'm not sure if that's even a possibility. I mean, obviously the board could request that. Well, obviously the board can request it and they would have to pay for it too, I don't think will get you any closer to an answer. Does that make sense? Yes. Because I think the answer is very statutory in this specific case but I also just want to let you know like this isn't a blanket open door for every law enforcement officer to file for a PTSD claim. And I will tell you, a lot of the things leading up to the PTSD claim could have been symptoms related to his PTSD that just were not recognized yet, right? And I've spoken to a lot of psychiatrists in this matter and what they said is you drop 100 police officers and they all see the same event, right? They all see the same event. 95% of them will be fine and 5% will not be fine, right? However, they compartmentalize themselves. There's no process ahead of time. So even though Newsman and Beach did everything correct in screening and doing a psychological evaluation, we cannot predict who's going to respond to a gruesome event and how they're going to respond to it. So that's why that statute was enacted was to protect that 5%. Well, I certainly recognize that and you're preaching to the choir up here. All but one of us have been a police officer for many, many years. So we understand the nature of PTSD and certainly my military background has that involved as well. And I and I know that things can exist beforehand, and then new experiences, not related to military or vice versa, can trigger things and cause just like you described out of 100 people, doesn't affect 99 of them, but it does affect the one. So, certainly understand that, and thank you for that clarification. And I will tell you to you, I'm married to a retired law enforcement officer. He's not been diagnosed with PTSD, but one of his first road calls was to a two-year-old who pulled a TV screen down. Everything is mounted to our house, you know, like all the bookshelves, everything is mounted. And that's how he compartmentalized and dealt with it, right? That's how he dealt with seeing the death of a two-year-old. It was gruesome, it was horrible, and now nothing can be pulled down in our house. And when I look at our house, even though I don't like all the things mounted to the wall, they're gonna stay that way. Okay, are there any other questions from the board for clarification? I just had one question on the triggering events. I guess what's the burden or the proof of those events of what was seen or actually even there? That kind of... Well, the burden for those events just to answer you is we have to establish that he participated in those events or responded to those calls. He could testify to that, but I will also tell you, workers' compensation has thoroughly investigated that, and they would not have authorized a treatment and care if there wasn't some verification of that he participated or responded to those calls. So the next this has been determined. Yes, the next this has already been determined. And I think you can see in the adjuster notes that they said they spoke to the city officials and they obtained police reports to that effect. Okay, Pedro, do you have any further clarification? I'm sorry, can you repeat that? Do you have any further comments or guidance on them? I do. I just have a couple of questions if the board is done or at least if I can interject, I just have some things that I would like to clarify. I do have a question, actually. I'm sorry. So we talked about duty related. So I talk about permanent. That's what I was asking about the MMI stuff. Okay. Is there any statutory regulations regarding to permanent? I know Dr. Fittaro had said that he's reached the point where he's not going to be able to come back. I was trying to figure out how he determines that with the treatment that he's done. MMI in workers' compensation and in real life are two different things, okay? So MMI basically is as you're as good as you're going to get in workers' compensation and basically Dr. Figueroa has said I don't see any treatment restoring him to any better position, but I'm gonna continue to treat him and I'm gonna continue to provide him services because this individual is in need of services, but I'm going to continue to treat him and I'm going to continue to provide him services because this individual is in need of services. But he has piggybacked that with saying no matter what I do, nothing is going to restore him back to full service as a law enforcement officer. Okay. I don't know if that clarifies your answer. The reason why I ask is in January of this year I attended a FPPA conference and during that there was a PTSD seminar and there was a disability seminar. And in there I was educated on some treatment options and stuff like that and what maximum medical improvement and they discussed. It was Dr. Brian Ruther, but he ultimately discussed options that were available. I'm just curious why those options aren't available in this situation. Well, and I would defer to Dr. Figueroa in his ongoing treatment. He has evaluated that and determined for Mr. Claudio that these treatments would not benefit him in the pursuit of stabilizing them. Which is a witch specific treatment? Yes. No, which specific treatments won't help? Well, I'm familiar with the protocol that Mr. Mechel is speaking about. Usually, like, I've had officers submit to shock therapy. You know, that's kind of pretty extreme, but I've had officers submit to shock therapy. I've also had EMDR therapy. I've had other officers do that. Mr. Claudio and Dr. Figueroa have evaluated different options and basically getting him away from law enforcement and the longer he's being away from law enforcement, the more stable he is doing without the invasive type therapy such as shock therapy. For any of those conversations or about, they're not being available, documented anywhere for me to see. I'm not sure if I can prove a negative, but if he was recommending it, he would put it in the DWC form for workers comp. Does that make sense? I'm not sure I can prove something that doesn't exist, but I can tell you that if he was recommending it, or if he was being non-compliant with recommendations, Dr. Figueroa would put that in the DWC as well. So the question is, my question is in looking in the packet, if the police getting them away from the police work being around police work aggravated his symptoms, then why when he was on administrative leave from the city, he came and attended a training session on police with the police department with the officers. Why would he show up and put himself in a situation? I don't recall being that way. When he left employment, that was it. When he was on administrative leave, he never came back. I thought I'd read what you were referring to. Yeah. Was this what he was wearing or something? I read something where he showed up to a training session. So that was when he was still employed, I believe. Yeah. That was the wrong shirt on or something. But he was on administrative leave. I never came back. OK. And I must. You never back. I believe. That was the wrong shirt on or something. But he was on administrative leave. I never came back. Okay. I must, I must, I must, I must, I must, I must, I must, I must, I must, I must, I must, Let me ask this. Is there a fear to make a statement that MMI, to return to police work, might be different than MMI to live your life at home? Yes. And I kind of feel like that's what I got from reading Dr. Figueroa that he doesn't think he's ever been able to get him back to the police work, but he might be able to get him better associated at home so he doesn't have the anxiety and the depression, the other kinds of things that were mentioned in this. That's what I took away from him. Yes, there's many other jobs that he could be doing when he reaches a point where he can do those jobs outside of law enforcement. That's the way I understand it. Yeah. One last thing, Troy. The information that I had, Sean, talk about that now. I'm going to defer that to Pedro at this time. All right. Mr. Herrera, you're up. Okay. So just a couple of things. And Miss Oliver referenced chapter 1, 12.18181815. And I'm going to defer that to Pedro at this time. All right. Mr. Herrera, you're up. Okay. And Ms. Oliver referenced chapter 112.181815. And I just wanted to just clarify for the board that this statute specifically deals with workers compensation. It does not establish any presumption for purposes of your considerations, for purposes of pension disabilities. It is specific to workers comp and even in the statute itself, not to belabor the point, but the first kind of prong of that is you have to establish that the post-traumatic stress disorder resulted from the first responder acting within the scope or within the course the course of their employment, right? And, and then it goes on to, to, to the others. So, that's actually what the board is trying to do here. So, for many reasons, this statute does not apply for our purposes or for your purposes here. The other, I guess, questions I wanted to ask were really just more clarification. And it's referenced throughout the records, but is our member, is he receiving any kind of disability from the VA? For mental health or for any other conditions? Any other condition? Any condition, including mental health? He is. The fact that he's receiving 50% disability, military disability. He is receiving VA benefits, but it includes more than just mental health. And the mental health was not established until after, I believe 2020, I can pull out my book if you want me to, but it was not, it started when he was a member here at New Smirno Beach. Yes, I believe it was from what I read. It was rated that I want to say 50% of PTSD related back to military actions and then other ratings for physical things I I think, took it up to 80%. I think you're right. That's what I remember. It says 50% related to PTSD. Right. So a portion of his VA disability is related to PTSD events. Yes. Yes. Okay. Good. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify, I'm sure that I was correct on that. And he was given a prescription for a emotional support dog, right, from the VA as a result of this disability. I believe so, yes. Yeah, it's in the records as well. And so the other questions I had were in the VA records themselves. And you may not know this, you may know this, but there are a number of emails that our member wrote to the VA urging for letters to say that he cannot go back to work. the letters that they have provided were for too short of a period of time, and he wrote four different emails that I can tell requesting that the letter be changed to actually say that he can't go back to work. Do you know why he did that? Well, I can tell you, part of that is the process of four human resources. They do need confirmation that he can or cannot go to work and they require certain things, but also in order to trigger evaluation with workers' compensation, he needs it written in a certain way. And I believe that he was seeking clarification of that in his emails. Well, I mean, not to disagree, but, you know, the letters, the letters didn't say anything about clarification. They actually just said, you only gave it to me for two to three weeks. I needed permanent. So it's not really anything other than just, I need it for a longer period of time. Yes, I can just I can just advise you that it's my understanding as I indicated that part of that was prompted by the directions of human resources in returning or clarifying his work status. the relevance to that to our television here. It was a or clarifying his work status. Pager, what's the relevance to that to our deliberation? I was just, again, I mean, it was just, I found it odd that he, you know, the VA had given him a time, right? You shouldn't return to work for two to three weeks, and he was, I don't want to say insisting, but he was consistently requesting that that be extended to permanent. And so I just, I didn't know why, if the VA was saying one day, why he felt the need to ask them to change that to, I can't come back at all. So I would judge it to know if there was any, if there was any reasoning or rationale. And those emails start about September 4th of 24. But even throwing out the issues with the VA determination, we still have Dr. Figueroa's letter. Which was done independently of any VA consideration, correct? Yes. I'm sorry, I missed it. I'm sorry. I missed it. So notwithstanding the VA determination, so the issue with the timing on the VA determination of permanence, take that out of the picture. We still have a determination independently from Dr. Figueroa that says he's disabled. You do. Yes, sir. Okay. So we have the one leg that the city's medical separation satisfies the one leg. Without regard to what the actual true impacting triggering event was, we have triggering events that qualify under the statute and the third leg is what? Well, we don't, I don't know if we have triggering events that's qualified in the statute. I don't think that that's been established. Again, that the first thing that needs to be established for this to even kick in, and again, it doesn't apply to pensions. It only applies to workers' compensation. But the first point that needs to be established is the post-traumatic stress disorder resulted from the first responder acting within the course of his or her employment. And so I don't know if that's been established yet, at least on the record. Again, I think that's something that the board has to establish or will establish. But for purposes of this statute applying, that needs to have been, that needs to come first. And so, so, so that, so maybe I'm just understood what she was saying, that in order to determine if it was a line of duty issue, he had to experience one of several statutorily defined triggering events. Yes. And I really. For purposes of workers compensation, yes. For purposes of this pension, it has this statute has nothing to do with this pension. So you're telling me the triggering events she referred to that he experienced doesn't satisfy the requirement of one of the three legs? I would say that's for you guys to decide. But you gave us the impression that the staff, you didn't specify to my clarity that that applies specifically to workers comp and that we have discretion. The way you phrased it, if he experienced one of these triggering events, we have no choice in the matter. We're obligated to say he met that condition. Is that your, that's the indication I got from your statements. And that is my position. If you actually look at the statute, and I have it for you, if you want to look at my notes, I have the statute printed out and it's complete entirety. And what it says is it defines a first responder. It does not discuss whether it's workers compensation related or pension related. So and your specific ordinance is not clear. So I have some ordinances that say we will include 112 or exclude 112, 1 8 1 5. Your pension does not do that. It seems like that there's no way to get to this point without going through a workman's top issue where it's physical or mental. And so from my purposes, I was not misleading my position and my argument was that this statute is 100% applicable. And I also believe it almost gives you no discretion because if you meet these triggering criteria and if you're treating with a psychiatrist assigned by workers comp, it's deemed work-related. That's if I buy your interpretation of the connection between work comp and pension, correct? Correct. Okay. Back to Dr. Figueroa, he uses the term precipitating event thing. So to me, and maybe I'm making a layman's reach here, but to me, the statute that may pertain to workman's comp is giving me some guidance as to what types of things trigger the mental problem. And to me, that's a reasonable approach to take to determine whether this kind of fits the problem, even if we're trying to apply it to the pension side of the house. So to me, the issue is the experience things that were trauma. And I think myself and the other two, the current law enforcement, I'm retired. But I've seen a lot of these events and some of them affected me and some of them didn't affect me. And it depended on the relationships and who I knew. What struck me in this particular one was the incident with the homeless person on the bicycle. He didn't know the minor, but he knew the guy on the bicycle. And I made the connection there to seeing a fellow law enforcement officer well hole in his head. And thing, well, me, well, at the same time dealing with somebody who tried to commit suicide, who I didn't know, and I was able to compartmentalize that in another fashion. So to me, I think they're guidelines for us. And I think that's what we're trying to do to find out if there's something that happened, is it significant and would it have affected him? But it would it be fair to say, because Dr. Halvin makes the case. you know what? Yes, he experiences other things, but given the timing of the circumstances, he believes that the true triggering event was the investigation in all of the allegations that he and the public issues going on in his life, which put him in a stressful situation was the triggering event. Now that it's clear that we have discretion to determine the credibility of each doctor's position, Dr. Figueroa says it's were these line of duty disability events. Dr. Hall says he believes it was these non-work comp issue triggering event. We have the ability to weigh the credibility of each of the doctors and make a determination then whether we believe Dr. Hall's interpretation of what the triggering event was and what Dr. Figueroa's triggering event was. Is that correct, Pedro? Yes, it is. Okay. And I would add that you also there is already a VA issue disability benefit for his service in the military, for post-traumatic stress disorder or mental health. And so that should obviously be factored in as well. I'm not sure how you can separate those two like that, but I would like more clarification on the reasons we are, as you said, to exclude from Dr. Hall's evaluation, everything related to the current events that we're going on at a time, outside of the traumatic events that he did experience. Well, I look back at the current or the memos. Like there's several memos in those files that talk about Mr. Claudio's erratic behavior comments, then there was the ensuing investigations for the eternal affairs. I think those are all symptoms of this PTSD. I don't think that they caused his PTSD. And if you look at the criteria for PTSD, you have to see a traumatic event, right? So an eternal affairs investigation may be stressful, but it doesn't meet the criteria of a traumatic event or event that would shock the conscience, right? It's an internal affairs investigation. So I believe that it's kind of like the chicken or the egg which came first. I believe the symptoms from seeing these events. And if you look at his VA records in Dr. Voight in 2022, he was stable in performing his job duties. And then in the six to eight months proceeding his no work status, he sees three triggering events that give us guidance, right? That give us guidance. And I also would say that that guidance says you can't apportion that from other things going on. So in that statute it says we're not going to rank this gruesome event worse than this gruesome event. We understand that they're cumulative and that's why we're not a portion. That's the one 1218. That's the work comp statu. Yes it's workers comp 440, but this is not a workers comp statute. This is a statute within Florida statute. And while it govern or provides direction under workers' compensation, it's not limited just to workers' compensation. If you look at it, it talks about definitions of law enforcement officers not exclusively. If it doesn't explicitly say we can't preclude any other evidence, we have the ability to make our own determination. Yeah. Unlike the other case where the city made the determination that he's medically separated, you've eliminated that cause for our consideration. Correct. The boxes check we have no discretion in the matter. You're saying that 112 doesn't explicitly prohibit us from considering other factors that were the triggering events. But in these certain cases not explicitly to pensions we have the ability to consider other factors that may have contributed to a triggering event. I think as a pension board you have the ability to consider lots of different factors including different triggering events, but I don't think any there's any evidence from a preponderance of the evidence or scientific evidence that the doctor can say that the IA over these events caused Dr. Hall could say that the IA caused Mr. Claudio's PTSD over those triggering events that have been provided in the statute that provide the board and workers compensation guidance in order to award benefits. guidance but not manned. Then why would Dr. Hall take all the time to mention those coincidental events as far as timing goes in his report? I don't know but he didn't ask Mr. Claudio about them at all. There was no discussion in their significant evaluation of any of the IA or internal affairs investigation. Pedro, do you have any comment on that or? Pedro. I'm sorry. Can you, I think I heard comment? Yeah, did you have any comments on that? I mean, he wasn't asked about that by the IME doctor, but the IME doctor used his, you know, outside resources to bring that into the report. And obviously he felt strong enough that it could be a factor yet he left it over open that there might not be a factor, you know, so just out of due diligence for the board, that's a sticking point, you know, of should we proceed with another IME? I mean, that's a great expense or, you know. Sure. So, I mean, in my, I don't believe that this would disqualify the report. Obviously, you can, we can ask for further clarification from Dr. Hall. You can schedule another IME report. Again, this is all publicly available information, but I don't know whether or not it was discussed with the member. I have not asked Dr. Hall that. So I don't know the answer to that question. Well, I can have Mr. Claudio testify to under oath to that if you would like me to, but the other thing that I can also tell you is while it may not specifically strike the report in its totality, I think this board has to give great weight to the fact that he used several resources outside the pension book when he's supposed to confine himself to the pension book and to Mr. Claudio's evaluation. Well, and it's clear that Mr. Claudio never volunteered that information to anybody that has treated him, that this was a thing that I was going through in my life to even give either Dr. Figaroa or Dr. Halleability to determine whether that may have been the factor of the triggering event. So it would have been to his advantage not to disclose that to either doctor because then it would skew the opinion in another direction, correct? I agree with your statement and I believe that that's correct, but I also would tell you that while the Internal Affairs investigation was going on and until he was exonerated, he was not permitted to discuss the facts of the internal affairs investigation. And that, I believe, came from the city of New Smonna Beach. I believe that's an error. I believe he's allowed to discuss whatever he wishes with a medical professional. And our HR directors here, we can get her to clarify the situation if you'd like. I don't think that that's appropriate out of initial or informal hearing. Well, let me ask her question here. In reading this document and then subsequently the FDLE of valuation and then what happened to the internal affairs and I don't know anything about it other than than what was in the newspapers, if no access to anything else. So I'm basing it on what FDLE said here, what the newspapers claimed happened. And apparently it didn't. The investigation, as I understand it, from the letter from Figaroa, has been completely expunged from the record. So we have a dog. I guess what record are we referring to that it was expunged? He says it is expunged. It means it's gone. I think it's still exists. I'm sure in the history files, but as far as his FDLE certification record, as far as the official record of that, maybe in some file, but as far as the official record, the word expunge means expunge, it's gone. Am I right? It's not believed as well. It's not for consideration. Yeah, it's gone. So when you look at that context and you go back to all the comments and I got a whole folder here where I extracted all the footnotes from Dr. Hall's thing and I read every one of them there was an awful lot of bases played on that internal affairs investigation as being why he filed his workman's comp and his ultimate disability. And I think that you could look at it from the perspective that that was improper or you could look at it from the perspective that maybe that just tipped the barrel on. If you go back to his record and you look at his performance records over the years, he was doing a great job. He gets supervisor a year. He functioned pretty well till he has the incident in 2020. Then the incident of the promotion issue comes up and he seems to change. And again, I don't know the gentleman and I'm not a current police officer here. So I don't know what happened day to day. I'm reading a file. It looks like a change in his attitude towards work and his conformance to rules and policies is disintegrated. So we come along with this event. He said these traumatic incidents that occurred in that period after the promotion issue, a couple of them, and then it comes along and gets us internal affairs. And if I read FEDLE, FDLE's report correctly, what was alleged to be in the incident turned out not to be what was in the incident. So as the person being investigated, he obviously had to know what was correct and what was not correct and whatever that evidence was, okay? Because it was his Britain Texas, I understand it. So to me, and I apologize for being lengthy, to me, the internal Thursday investigation being used as a major component to claim that's why he was filing for Workman's Comp. I don't think has merit. I don't think it belonged in there. In the doctors' evaluations. I was standing the outcome of the investigation. Wouldn't you agree that even going through the process of accusations in an internal investigation be a stressful situation for an individual? I'm not saying it isn't. I think it might have been all this stress coming up from these other incidents. This might have been the straw that broke the camel's back. The final triggering event. No, but it doesn't have to be a final triggering event. If I understand that it's criteria correctly, it has to be a triggering event and he has triggering events. Even if you buy, even if you buy that the internal affairs investigation is why he filed, okay? Got it. was's triggering events before that that contributed to whatever the filing was for in my opinion. And therefore, if you want to classify it as one of the reasons fine, but there's other ones there, and you can exclude the other ones because of this one. Okay. That's my point. I can understand your point. Well, me. Sorry. I'm a little confused, I'm sorry. So there's an exhalation and expungement. You mentioned both of those. Was that for FDLE or was that from the Internal Affairs investigation? Well, my understanding is FDLE expunged any cause so that they found no cause to sustain any allegations My understanding from the city of Newst more than a beach is that once he was medically separated There was no further investigation because he was no longer employed. That's true I didn't read it. It just be stopped where it was it stops where it was and that file would still exist, but it's not Yeah, there's true. I didn't read enough. It just be stopped where it was. It stops where it was. And that file will still exist, but it's not. There's nothing to do with it. So let's take the triggering argument out of the equation here and we go back to the permanency issue. Page 78 of Dr. Hall's report. Is the applicant a good candidate? I'm sorry. Yeah. Is the applicant a good candidate for this form of treatment therapy or surgery? In general, Mr. Claudio would be a good candidate for additional therapies or treatments, given his past response as when he was compliant and not drinking. So Dr. Hall at least says gives the feeling that there is the ability for him with further treatment to raise his level to be qualified to be police officer again. I don't disagree that that's what Dr. Hall says in the totality of his report and all the other evidence that he gathers from outside resources. However, I do believe that Dr. Figueroa who has ongoing treatment, ongoing care, who continues to see Mr. Claudio on a regular basis has indicated that not only would it be detrimental for Mr. Claudio to return as a law enforcement officer, it would be a liability to the city. I'm not saying that both doctors have an opinion. One doctor says I think he can be treated and be brought back to the other one says no. It's up to us to weigh the credibility and viability of those. So the issues of how doctor hall got his information is irrelevant. His opinion still is that he believes with treatment, he could get back to an acceptable level. Well I don't I don't believe that the issues of how Dr. Hall got his information is irrelevant. It could be a violation of due process. So he went outside the scope of the pension system to obtain some of his information which is clear from his report. I want to pay during the weigh-in on that. Pedro can you weigh in on the legality of the pension system to obtain some of his information, which is clear from his report. I want Pedro to weigh in on that. Pedro, can you weigh in on the legality of the statement that he went outside the scope of the IME, bringing in those outside resources that focused on the IA part? I don't, again, I mean, I think I mentioned it before, but I don't believe that that disqualifies the IME. Again, I don't think, you know, the medical records that were provided that, you know, the scope of the examination is to provide us with an opinion with respect to whether or not he's qualified to return to work as a police officer and to identify, you know, the nature of his disability. So, you know, we didn't limit him in any way with our correspondence or with our records. So again, I don't believe it. It disqualifies the report. You know, obviously, as with everything that you have before you, you all, you heard me say, you're the judge and the jury, right? And so, a jurist, our job is really to give you all as much information as possible. And it's your job to weigh each piece of evidence. You may give more weight to one report than the other. A reason could be, hey, we don't think it was right for him to have done this outside research and included as part of his report. And so you may give less weight to that report than the trustee sitting next to you, right? But no basis in law. I don't see an issue with the report as it's presented. I don't think it disqualifies. I don't think it's disqualified. I don't think it's against your ordinance or state law. Again, I think it's the report that you have. We can obviously see clarification from the, if that's what the board would like. We can have a new report put forward. There are other alternatives, but if you're asking me whether or not this report should just be disqualified, my answer is no. So the issue of the outside information was only related to what may have been the triggering event. The outside information would have no bearing on Dr. Hall's opinion on whether he's treatable to an acceptable level at that point. That's the way I see it. The outside information was in relation to considering what were the triggering events. He still made a determination, a separate determination based upon all of their factors. I think this guy's treatable. So therefore that answers the question of permanency. But let me ask this question. Okay. We're talking about a file and medical records and all the other stuff Stuff that he referenced in there was that provided as part of the file or is that something that he went out and got somewhere else And that it does is that the way It's supposed to be done or is this supposed to be based on the medical records? So my and while I may agree with Attorney Herrera that it may not disqualify the report, I think it goes to the weight of the evidence of the report. So you have to consider the weight not just for the permanency but for the service connected. And at the initial hearing, Florida Statue in 17585, which is part of this board, you're supposed to consider what is in the pension book and the testimony of Mr. Claudio, if you would like to ask him any questions. I would assert that by going outside the pension book, Dr. Hall considered evidence that was not within the pension book, which demeans the weight of the evidence, not just for the triggering event, but for all of his opinions. I think all of the other information that Hall had in his report was stuff that was again earlier in the report, provided by the other medical things. So all of the medical history, all of the other treatments were already referenced previously in the medical, previous medical history that was part of the package. So the only thing that Dr. Hall added new was his outside investigation into the other factors related to the discipline. All of the other medical history was provided previously in the report by the other medical providers. I agree with that. Yeah, yeah. My concern was the fact that, as described was that he went out outside the guardrails of the evidence provided to obtain information. And if the bulk of that information is not official records from News Merna Beach, it's newspaper reports. And we all know how newspaper reports are not reliable. Pedro, is that evidence outside the pension ordinance or pension book as she calls it? That's, you know, is there any guidance in the pension ordinance that weighs in here? No, no, there's no specific set of, you know, what is included, what can be considered, what can't be, right? It's actually the opposite, right? So as Purdue shares, the goal here is to get as much information as possible. And I think, you know, to Ms. Oliver's point, and my point earlier, it's your job to kind of weigh the evidence according to me. And so, you know, you've heard me talk about process, right? And so ultimately your decision here, it's not, I hate to say it's right or wrong, right? There's no right or wrong answer. There's no right or wrong action. It is just, is it a reasonable decision? And so to arrive at a reasonable decision, you need a reasonable process. And so by having the information before you, having this hearing, having the opportunity to, if the board would like to question the member through his attorney, obviously we can do that as well. But again, there's no out of bounds in bounds, right? It's just evidence. So it's admissible. Or the board for the board to consent. It's admissible. Let me ask the board this. Is there any interest? It is admissible under a board administrative procedure, which is essentially what we're doing here. It's as evidence, it is admissible. There's very little that would be inadmissible. The rules of admissibility for evidence are not as stringent as you typically find in the courts. Is there any interest among the board members for pursuing a second IME report? No, I think that'd be a waste of money. I kind of agree. I don't think we're gonna get. Yeah, even with those factors outside of a new IME report, I don't think we're gonna get there. So. Well, the issue is is is treatability though. I understand your point. Yeah, the triggering event, yeah, we don't, nobody's ever going to determine what the true triggering event was. Well, one doctor says there's more treatment. Other one says, not for long-for services. Yeah, so the question is do we want to do a tie breaker? So the speaker and consider it there. So I for one, I don't see any point to it. I think if I was correct in reading as Dr. Hall met with him one day for several hours to do this interview. And Dr. Figaro has been treating the guy for six or nine months. That's true. Correct. Almost a year now. Almost a year now. Yes. That's my understanding. Yes. Am I correct? Yes. Yeah. So, so I don't think, you know, I don't think if we said another doctor down and say don't consider the internal affairs investigation, you know, he might not come out of different inclusion either. either. I think it's a waste of time. All right. Anything else from the board? Yes. So you mentioned three events. Can you just go through them with me again? Yes. So on February 8th, he responded to... I'm sorry, what year was that? 2024. OK. He was a supervisor on a traffic common bus side involving someone who he had known, a homeless person that was cycling on State Road 44 and New Smirna Beach. He also responded to this suicide of an individual who had shot his head off approximately six months before March 4th of 2024. It was brain matter involved, which is one of the considerations of the statute. And he responded to a motor vehicle accident where a 15 year old or a minor, the minor is the triggering event, it involves a minor, but also that minor had brain matter as well. So he responded to that call as well. When did that one occur? I did not write the date down for that one, but I can tell you that workers comp also investigated all three of those claims. The reason why I ask is because if it's the crash that I'm thinking of with the minor, it would have occurred in April of 22. And then there's documents with doctors that we haven't discussed yet, which was a Dr. Anthony Kaposi, where he saw him for a couple of years. And during those times, he wasn't showing signs of PTSD. And it would have been immediately following that particular crash. Well, I can just let you know that that's why the statute gives us guidance, right? Because it's not just one triggering event. It's the culmination. And that's why they don't apportion those. That's why they're not going to say, well, maybe you can process one claim, but when you see it over and over and over again, it's going to affect you differently. So that's why they don't apportion different events. Okay. And can I just want to clarify, it, and I understand we're using the word triggering event, but the statute requires that the event in question be the cause of the PTSD, right? It's not the same as triggering a prior diagnosis of PTSD. So I just want to make that distinction because we're using the word trigger and I think it has two different meanings in the way it's being used. The statute requires that one of these events essentially had happened, right? And that in addition to the PTSD resulting from the performance of their duties as a police officer as a first responder, right? It has to get that both of those. For the statute to apply, and the statute again would apply as it reads here to this subsection in chapter 440. But, and so again, I just wanted to clarify that a trigger to a preexisting condition is not the same as a triggering event in the way that I think we're describing here. And I would agree with you attorney Herrera, but I would also just comment too that mental health is not like a motor vehicle accident where you break your back and then you have an acute event Mental illness is a combination over time that That's why they that's why they gave us that guidance in the statue I think we have to also go back to Dr. Bartlett screening of of officer Claudio Back when we hired him and when he was hired in Edgewater as well, prior to us, you know, it doesn't matter if the diagnosis goes way back in time before that, or it was under the surface and not diagnosed to a triggering event later on. So I understand the relevancy and the irrelevance he had. So I think as a board, are we prepared to offer a motion one way or the other? I mean, are you? I'll make a motion for. I'll make a motion. For or. But I just want to make sure there's no other questions. Okay. No other concerns. Pedro, was there anything with the documents that I sent you earlier? Is there anything that we need to address on those? No, I mean, I think, you know, I think we've discussed it here. And, you know, again, it's, uh, there's... I think that the events in question have been described, but if there's any further questions or anything that maybe we want to ask of our member, we can certainly do that. Does the member want to make any statement or? Um, he's allowed me to speak on his behalf right now, so um, I figured it. So, yes. So there's one thing that I want to bring up. All right, and I mentioned this and through my fiduciary duties, I actually reviewed this really thoroughly. All right, one thing that just drew my attention towards the yesterday actually, when I was reading this was the report from Dr. Figueroa. And at the bottom of the report, when he mentions the minor's death, and mentions that the ... Actually, I have some packets if so people can fall along. But at the very bottom, the last paragraph, partway through it, it says a particular event, including the death of an adolescent in a car crash, which the adolescent was trapped between the adult seats, causing major physical trauma and blood splatter in the vehicle. As per the criteria of the PTSD in the context of the first responder, a qualifying event in the death of a minor in the event that the scene also met the requirements of agreements for bodily harm of a nature that shocks the conscious which is also part of the statute. I read that and I was one of the investigators that was on scene on that. And I remember arriving there prior to Sergeant Claudio at the time and the body had had been removed already, and there was no trauma at the scene, and the scene was surprisingly bloodless than anything else. So, for my purpose of like making sure that I do my due diligence and make sure that my recollection of this was right, I did some research, and I cannot find anything in our database that shows that certain Claudio would have witnessed the child in this particular case. We have GPSs in our cars, we have CAD reports that document like what time to show up and stuff like that. There's also documentation for when people are transported from the scene to a hospital. And so I also went back and reviewed the photos, and the body cam footage of the crash. And there's the blood splatters, and there's also stuff that's documented in his medical reports that says about seven months ago, this is on page 1413, halfway down. About seven months ago, he was called to a crash on St. Louis 44, in which it was a rear end of a minivan. On the back part of the minivan, there was a 15-year-old boy who was crushed between the seats. It was a horrific scene. There was blood everywhere. Little ways down, the patient also complained of reoccurring intrusive memories of multiple incidents including the child in the minivan. I have questions regarding that because the child was not there when we got there. There was a crushed car, admittedly there's a crushed car. There was minimal blood and not consistent with the way that it's described. And as I said before, there's pretty clear documentation from me looking just to make sure that I was not incorrect in my state. In my thoughts that he wasn't there at the time and that he did not go to the hospital and view the body prior to the medical examiner arriving to collect it. And then when you talk about brain matter from the child, I also reviewed the photos because I photographed the scene and I photographed the child and the child's while he's suffering major trauma there was no exposed brain matter. I'm not even that was a difference. I think the brain matter wasn't a difference and is that correct? With the suicide gun shot to the head. So, and I do appreciate you honoring your fiduciary duty and going through that. However, those footage and that information is not something that I had pervia for the pension hearing or did Mr. Claudio for me to review with him? So I would either ask one, if you do not feel comfortable issuing a vote that you recuse yourself since you were a direct witness to that and did research, outside the purview of the pension information that's set here for today if that makes you feel more comfortable but the other argument I would also assert to the pension board is even if you ignore this one incident it's not this one incident he has several incidences that were investigated And I understand what you're saying about ignoring the other incidents. However, when the doctors are saying that, we'll say it this way. It was Dr. Hall. on page 1500, Dr. Hall says, I am also concerned that Mr. Claudio appears to have a history of telling different versions of events based on who he is doing the evaluation and the context of which it is occurring. And not all of that, but then go on the page 1489, where it says, Mr. Cardio provided a very unusual combination of responses that is associated with non-cutable reports, cognitive symptoms and so on. So my concern is that there's some inconsistencies. And then if there's one inconsistency, then where is the other ones? Is there? Well, and again, I appreciate your concern, but I will tell you every witness, I'm sure you've interviewed lots of witnesses, are going to all see things from a different vantage point, right? So one thing that you may see may be different than one thing that Mr. Claudio may see. And as he is exploring and honestly working on himself in therapy, discussing with his doctors, it may be inconsistent because he's opening up memories to discuss and help himself to become better and more stable. Make no mistake. I'm a huge advocate for mental health. I'm a huge advocate for that. We need to process things. I go to counseling myself and I do understand. I'm not in his situation. I've never been in his situation. However, I understand what you're saying. Thank you. If there's not any further questions, I would ask the board then to make a motion talking about those three legs, right? A motion that it's a permanent disability that it's total by law and that it's service connected. I would make an Emotion to approve the application for retirement as being consistent with Law and process. I believe that's what you said. Well before we go on, We're going to be conducting a voice vote one way or the other. So I have a procedure to do that and I have a motion prepared that I would like to read and then we'll conduct a vote. You need to say I would. I'll reject my motion. Okay, I will make a motion to conduct a board member voice vote on the in line of duty disability application of Mr. Robert Claudio as presented in review during this hearing. Can I get a second for that? Second. Okay, one second at it. The voice vote procedure is going to go as follows. A. get a second for that. Second. Okay, one second at it. The voice vote procedure is going to go as follows. A yay or yes vote will signify approval of the in line of duty disability application. I don't think that's one of our options. We either, according to what Pedro said, we either have to make a motion to approve or a motion to deny and that one of those two motions has to pass. Correct, Pedro? You have guidance on that, Pedro? That's fine. The way I'm doing it? The way he's doing it, the way. Either is really fine. You could do it either way. I think you could do it either way. I think, again, we had the explanation for what the yes vote means, what the no vote means. I think either way, my most important requirement is that each board understand what their vote means. So I think with the explanation, if a yes vote means to grant, a no vote means to deny. I think that would be fine. It's just a matter of, importantly, you you guys know, and then we have it clear as part of the record. Okay, I'll say this again, AES or YA vote will signify approval of the Inline of Duty Disability Application, and in NA or NOVO will signify Denial of the Inline of Duty Disability Application to all members understand the vote. Yes. I'm going to now ask the board administrator, Mr. Gin, to please call the roll. Nobody's seconded in your motion. They did earlier before the clarification of the vote of how the vote's going to go. Oh, well, all right. So then I'm going to withdraw my second because I don't understand what you're doing. Okay. So now I do., so I'm gonna withdraw my second. Can I get a second for the motion as I've read it? I'll second the motion. Board administrator, Mr. Jen, will you please call the roll? Hall or Wilson? Yes. Jason Reaver? Yes. Ron Nebert? Nay. Bradah Mechtel? No. Mark Severance? Yes. Ron Nebert. Nay. Brayden Mechtel. No. In Mark Severance. Yes. So, there's no with that. So we have three votes in the affirmative, two votes in the negative. The motion passes to honor the disability application. Thank you. I appreciate the boards' times, afternoon. Now, trustees, the ordinance essentially, I'm sorry. Did I cut somebody off? No. Oh, so I was just going to say, so the ordinance requires that the board establish to date the effective date of when the pension will begin, right? And so there are, you know, it could be as of today. It could be as of the application date. It can be as of whenever he was terminated, you know, essentially came off of payroll, stopped getting paid, or some other date that the board feels comfortable with, but we should establish the effective date of the benefit. Move that the effective date be April 10th, 2025. Anybody second? What was the date? I know you've brought it for workman's compensation. What was the date of the application for disability retirement? The date of application was August 15th of 2024. And his separation date was July 18th of 2024. And I would let the board know that he is not getting payments currently from workers' compensation. He is getting treatment. Has that, oh, I'm sorry, I'll wait, oh wait. Okay, so I answered my question. Go ahead, would you, I made a motion, there's need second. I'm sorry. I'll run. Which second? Was it that you were making the motion for? Move to make the effective date of the pension April 10th, 2025. Second. Sure. All those in favor? Say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed, like sign? Okay. Thank you. So just a couple of housekeeping items. First, thank you, trustees and Ms. Oliver for today's presentation. I did want to just keep everybody. Obviously, we have an ongoing obligation to pay pensions out correctly. And so what that means in terms of a disability pension is we have to ensure that our member remains disabled. And so periodically we will be following up and requesting verification on that front. So I just wanted to make sure that our member is aware of this and in response to our requests promptly, similarly that they keep their contact information up to date with our administrator just to make sure that we can get a hold of them. Second, there is a potential for the pension benefit to be offset. And I know that there is a workers compensation. I think I heard Ms. Oliver say he's not receiving anything, any form of payment from workers compensation. Is there an ongoing claim? Is there a settlement? Sorry, Pedro, I sat down so I came back up to the podium. Yeah. Um, there is an open workers compensation claim. The law and workers compensation can, uh, keep the claim open for the remainder of the claimant's life. There is a potential for settlement. However, um, you don't have to tell me what you're gonna be about. Trimman is more important right now than settlements. I thought I read in the record. I was just asking if there hadn't been an award or settlement, right? And so I understand that there hasn't been yet. So my only point is if there is at some point in the future going forward an award or a settlement, we just need to be kept apprised of that and obviously whatever that decision is if there's an order or a settlement agreement that we'd be provided copies of that. Miss Oliver, in the record there was a workman's compensation settlement for like $20,000 or? Not on this claim. Not on this claim? Not claim that I represent them on either. So I don't remember. I know I read that in there somewhere about a $20,000 check to Mr. Claudio. I don't- Could that have been for like payments, cumulative payments? Was that for salary replacement or something? I believe that may have been for ongoing payments when he was on not getting paid on. While he was on. Yes, while he was on. I believe pending that the- We can check with the city. Well, it just read something about that. There was an amount in there for something related to workments come. There was a period of monetary benefits. There is no period of payment right now. Okay. Okay. Pedro, you mentioned that we have the right to determine that he still qualifies for the disability. Can we make a motion at this point that he provide proof of continuing disability one year from this date? So, I mean, you certainly can. I think, and I'm going to ask Troy and Farrell, but I believe, do we send out disability verification letters here? I know we send out kind of the RU a lot of letters. I think we have in the past, but I could look back on that. I could back to you. Okay. Yeah. So, to the question, can we, you know, can we, can we set it for a year from today? We certainly can, but I think that may already be part of the process in terms of, you know, we check, we check with these folks, we check with our retirees, you know, in one instance, if they're alive, right? But if there's a disability recipient to verify. So either way, I think we can, I can work with the administrator, we can work with the administrator. right but if it's a disability recipient to verify so either way I think you know we can I can work with the administrator we can work with the administrator just to make sure and then we can report back at your next meeting how that's going to go. Okay yep good question. Any other business before the board at this time. Okay. With no objection, we'll close the disability hearing at this point. Thank you. And we'll take a short break for like five minutes. I won't be able to be here for the rest of the year. I can't do it. Okay. I don't want to hear be here for the rest of the evening. You're not here? No, I can't be on something. Okay. All right. I don't want to hear about the stock market anyway. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you I'm going to put it in the fridge. I'm going to put it in the fridge. I'm going to put it in the fridge. I'm going to put it in the fridge. I'm going to put it in the fridge. I'm going to put it in the fridge. I'm going to put it in the fridge. I'm going to put it in the fridge. I'm going to put it in the fridge. I'm going to put it in the fridge. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. I'm going to put it on the table. Let me know when you're ready, Troy. Okay. Just getting one second to. I assume he's recording. Yeah, it's still ticking off. Okay. All right. Call to order. City of Newsroom and the Beach Police Officer's retirement plan, pension board of trustees quarterly meeting. Today is Thursday, April 10th, 2025, and the current time is 307. You call the roll? Palmer Wilson. Palmer, your present. Here. Jason Reeve. As left. Ron Nebert. As left. Brandon Mechdel. Here. Mark Severance. Here. We have a quorum. Thank you. Okay, first order of business is approval of the minutes. From the January 9th, 2025 quarterly meeting. They're on your iPad if you haven't already reviewed them. And do we do public comments? Oh, I'm sorry, I skipped that. Any public comment? Good catch, Troy. Okay. Anyone here from the public? No. Okay. Moving on, approval of minutes. Second. All those are favor of approving a minute say aye aye. All those opposed like sign. All right minutes are approved. Next section is new business reports Burgess Chamber Associates Mitchell you're up. All right thank you for having me. I used to joke that when Frank would send me it's because there was bad news and unfortunately that is somewhat the case today. But he is out of town with his family as kids are on spring break. So I have a handout for you that you have in paper. And then our report begins on page seven of your tablets. And in the report we'll go go over the handout first, but in the report, I'll just highlight pages eight and nine are our market perspective, which dive in a little bit about the history of tariffs in our country and purposes behind them, reactions from the market and the economy about them. I know you've been here long enough. I won't bore you with that today, and we'll get into a little bit of it in our handout. So if you want to start on the first page of the handout, really a continuation of what we saw last year as far as the magnificent seven directing where the market is gone. And so you can see much different from last year where those seven names were up on average nearly 50 percent and contribute about 55 percent of the total market return. It's a much different story this year. So on average through the end of March, those seven companies were down about 15 percent, the worst of which Tesla down nearly 40 percent as we sit today. But a lot of things have obviously happened between the end of last year and the start of this year. First and foremost, if you go to the next page, there's really threefold what's happened to our markets and specifically the Magnificent Seven. So the one most recent has been the tariffs, the implementation of tariffs and taking off and putting back on and the uncertainty around that. Also, what you see in the chart here, what we call price to perfection. So these seven companies have become so highly valued and the expectations for them were so high that you can see the trends since the middle of 2023. Every quarter they're earning surprise so how much they beat the expected earnings. Buy has dwindled down to essentially being right on target and investors unfortunately and these high value high growth names have not liked that. So they've expected more from them and when they've missed or even just slightly beat their earnings expectations we've seen them sell off significantly. So tariffs, the evaluations, and then thirdly, in January, China came out with news and again take it with a grain of salt, how reliable it is. But essentially that they were able to accompany in China deep seat was able to develop an artificial intelligence platform at a fraction of the cost as what we've done here, whether it's OpenAI or chat GPT. And so a lot of these names specifically in a video who had led markets the past two years, who rely on the continuation of companies to buy their latest and greatest and most expensive chips to operate the data centers and support this artificial intelligence trend that we're seeing in the markets. All of a sudden it came out of China that hey we didn't use the latest and greatest. We used dated equipment and we were able to reduce results. In some cases better than what you're currently producing with all of these chips and components from NVIDIA. So that really saw the sell-off in not only NVIDIA, but those other seven names. So, again, much different market environment this year. If you go to the next page, page four, to break it out, we've really seen a total reversal of, you know, the past two years growth in general, which encompasses all seven of those mag seven, has really led to charge. This two charts here on page four is actually through Friday. You can see large growth, first large value. Large growth is underperforming large value by over 11%. So both down but growth down nearly 19%, large value down about seven and a half. And if you look at the chart below, this is each sector in the market. You can see all the growth sectors are the ones that are underperforming the S&P 500. So through Friday, the S&P 500 was down 13.4%. Last week was obviously the most volatile we've seen so far this year with the market down over 9%. But if you look at those sectors that are underperforming, its communication services, which includes meta, Facebook's parent company in that magnificent 7, consumer discretionary, which includes Amazon as Tesla and then technology which includes NVIDIA and Microsoft. And so you can see the poor performance of those three sectors and how it's really dragging down the market overall. The next page, page five. One thing that we're seeing with a lot of the uncertainty in the market is the fear index of the VIX. It's reached a level as of the last few trading periods that we haven't seen since COVID and prior to that we haven't seen since the subprime mortgage crisis, the great financial crisis in 2008. And so the VIX all it is is a projection for the next 30 days of volatility and how fast prices are changing. And so you can see whenever that spikes, it's kind of a gauge of fear and a negative sentiment in the market for investors. And so that's one thing. While we're seeing significant volatility to the downside, but also an opportunity if we continue to see the VIX spike, if we continue to see a sell off, there will be a certain point where the market becomes oversold and will allow you to rebalance. We're a little overweight still to US equities right now, but should the market continue to trend down? I'm sure Frank will reach out and offer some opportunities to rebalance. We're actually looking at yesterday, he had reached out to a few clients with upcoming meetings and mentioned that there may be opportunities to rebalance the market took off yesterday so we kind of put that on the back burner it's back down today so again there's still somewhat uncertain uncertainty in the markets as far as what policy will be going forward for the tariffs we have the 90-day reprieve with 10% tariffs across the board but they're still concerned that that tariffs on China are still 145%. So I think it's reported as 125, but that excludes the 20% tariff for fentanyl that still remains in place. So the actual true tariff on China right now is 145%. And so as I'm sure you're aware, we still consume quite a bit of goods from China. And so that will certainly have an impact on the U.S. consumers. The next page, and that leads into inflation, which fortunately we just got CPI data and this morning and for March, we actually saw it come back down. So September of last year, we were in a good place. CPI inflation was at 2.4% in trending down. The Fed's goal, again, is to get it down to 2%. And that really provides a path for them to cut rates at a quicker pace. Unfortunately, after September, inflation rose all the way back up to 3%. We saw it come back down in February at 2.8. And then, as I mentioned today, they announced March CPI year-over- year was 2.4%. So good news there. Unfortunately that doesn't capture any of the or reflect any of the tariffs that have gone into place. So again I think we're still going to be in a range of 2.5 to 3% for the next couple months. Entirely dependent on what comes out from tariffs. And one of the things that I will say the March law at Sounds Great, I think it's a little better than it sounds, or not as good as it sounds because the entirety of the drop that we saw month over month was really from energy and predominantly from gas prices. And we've already started to see gas prices tick back up. So we're really going to need a lot of the other areas, whether it's shelter, whether it's core goods, which terrorists will certainly increase the core goods, food at home, auto insurance. We need those areas to start coming down if we really want to see holistic reduction in inflation. The next page, page seven, the Fed meeting minutes from the prior month, which they went over yesterday. They still expect to be on pace for two cuts, potentially three this year. But they're in a bit of a sticky situation because their mandate, their dual mandate is twofold. They want to see full employment, which is 5% unemployment or less. And then they also want price stability, which their definition right now is that inflation at 2% or lower. And so the problem becomes if we do head into a recession, if these tariffs increase the cost of goods, increase inflation, then they're going to be battling between those two mandates. As unemployment takes up and inflation. They're ever to decide which one they focus in on and try to alleviate. In our view that will be full employment first and then a focus on price stability. So if we see a recession some of the speculator were in one. I don't. I can't verify that or not right now but if we do start see unemployment tick up, get above 5%, I think that's going to be their primary focus to reduce that and start cutting rates at a more quick pace in spite of potentially higher inflation. The next page and one thing that we're also keeping an eye on is the health of the consumer and And so here unfortunately we are starting to see some cracks. Very bottom right hand chart on page eight you'll see delinquencies. So these are balance percentage percentages of balances delinquent past 30 days. And so the four categories listed here are auto loans, credit cards, student loans and mortgages. And you can see this has increased steadily over the past few years. Auto loans over 8%, credit cards now up at 9%, and mortgages taking up to close to 4%. The only one that's been static has been student loans, but again, we're just restarting a lot of the interest and payments on those. So I would expect individuals who are already burdened with that. Now adding on student loans to that would expect that number of the delinquencies past 30 days to tick up over the next couple of months as well. And so, unfortunately, the cost of goods continues to rise. That's going to put more of a debt burden on individuals. And these are all interest rates sensitive areas. So the higher rates are, the higher those delinquent balances are going to continue to compound and make it harder for individuals and consumers to get out of debt. So certainly something we want to see. We want to see rates lower. We want to see costs in inflation lower. But right now there's not necessarily a pathway for that. And so we're keeping an eye and monitoring that situation and whether or not that could be an indicator that we are currently in a recession. Page nine, the good news, it's not all bad news, but from a fully established standpoint, we are expecting some strong returns from bonds. So here, this is based on the Bloomberg aggregate that we use as our benchmark for our bond funds. The current yield at the end of March was 4.6%. And so historically there's pretty strong correlation between that current yield and what returns you can project out over the next five years. And so we're projecting close to 5% return for bonds over the next five years. We had a good start to this quarter. We've given up a lot of that. So in the market turmoil over the past few days, we've actually seen rates rise. So they fell initially down to about 4% on a 10-year treasury. I just checked on monitoring it right now, CNBC. It's now bounced up today back to 4.4%. So again, when rates rise, we lose money in the bonds. We currently hold. but we're still net positive year-to-date, but again, we're seeing some volatility we weren't expecting a bonds. But if we kind of factor out where yields end this quarter it's going to be a good projection so if we have higher yields at the end of this quarter it's just projecting for the next five years we're going to have a little bit better returns from bonds even closer to that 5%. And then lastly we'll talk about your international manager. It was one of the bright spots for the quarter of the preliminary numbers we have to the end of March 31st. Positive returns there. And you can see here from a valuation standpoint, there's still heavily discount in international versus the US. In fact, nine of the 11 market sectors are still trading at a 20% plus discount to their US counterparts. And so we certainly think there's still opportunity there. You're slightly underway international from a target allocation standpoint. So we may rebalance over the next quarter to get you back up to target. One of the other things that Frank will consider discussing with you is American Funds, your specific is your sole international manager. They've underperformed, they underperformed this quarter in large part due to their growth manager and growth underperformed. And so we may want to, as we rebalance, we may want to consider a complement to them, potentially just the index itself, which is a little broader, has more value exposure to it, and frankly has done very well over the past two years. If you flip to the last two pages in the handout, page 12, I wanted to quickly just give you a highlight. Since we meet so early, we're always giving you preliminary numbers. I wanted to give you the final numbers for last quarter so the quarter ending December 31st and so I wanted to highlight here for the quarter the plan was down slightly 86,000 or 0.3% but that outperformed your benchmark which is down 1 and ranked in the top 25th percentile of other public pinch of funds across the country roughly 750 to 800 by the time we run this with your final numbers. Your best performing investments were that in Vesco, QQQ, the NASDAQ index fund, 5.2% followed by the Vanguard 500 ETF, up 2.4, and then cash was up 1.2%. for the totality of 2024, you're in 2.6 million or 12.7%, 12.4 net of fees, and that actually ranked you in the top 11th percentile of other public pension funds. And you outperformed your benchmark by nearly 2% over that time period, which was up 10.8%. Again, led by Invesco, QQQ, the NASDAQ growth outperformed, up 26% followed by the Vanguard 500 ETF, up 25. And in the Vanguard Mid-CAP index fund, that was up 15.3%. The next page, as I mentioned, this is as of the current order, so your preliminary report. You are still overweight domestic equity, 55% compared to 45. You have an overweight to large cap and an overweight to mid cap. That has likely come down over the past few days as a function of market losses and equities. But again, at the next quarterly meeting, frankly, likely review this with you, provide some rebalance recommendations and consider compilment in your international manager. If we add to international, likely looking at an index fund or a more value-oriented strategy to complement that. And then if there are no questions on the handout, we can jump right into the report. And again, in the tablet, I would direct you to page 11. Well, that was a good end to 2024, at least. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, great way to round out 2024, not a great start to fiscal year 2025, to a slightly negative quarter to start and then a negative quarter here. And you can see if we're looking at this page, what I'll highlight for your international manager, as I mentioned, value did much better than growth. If you look at the bottom left hand chart you see the MSC IE fee index and then it breaks it out small cap growth value and emerging markets Growth was only up 2.2% Emerging markets was up 3% so American fund your Pacific can have anywhere between 20 to 30% of their portfolio and emerging. So there overall the university invested was up about 3% for the quarter. If you look at that red bar that's skyrocketed up, that's the value side of international. That was nearly 12% for the quarter. So again they, while they had a positive return, one of the only positive areas of the market, they were hindered by not being in that specific side of the market on the value side. And so their performance compared to the benchmark, which is up seven. So think of the benchmark about 50-50 growth and value. They missed the benchmark because of that orientation to growth. Page five, the preliminary numbers for the quarter, you're down roughly 328,000 or 1.4%. Fiscal year at eight, so it's the first half of your fiscal year. Down roughly 415,000 or 1.8%. And then for the one year period, you're still up 1.1 million or 5.1%. Last bullet here, the Redemption request from American Corps Realty, 500,000. received just shy of half of that as of the end of the year, 238,895. So at this moment, no recommendation to turn that off, but we are seeing some positive signs of a bottoming out in commercial real estate from an office sector standpoint, which has been the big lagger commercial office. We did see last quarter JP Morgan announced that there was a net positive in terms of occupancy versus vacancy. So about 3.5 million square feet of office went occupied over vacant last quarter. And that's the first time we've seen that in a few years. And so another positive sign that we're seeing some return to work return to office and more utilization in that space so that may be putting a floor on the depreciation we've seen there so in our report we obviously don't have American core realties numbers yet but we're expecting about a 1% preliminary number from them in this report obviously when we finalize that we that, we'll send you the final report. And Frank will include the same update that I have from last quarter. So you'll be able to see, but we're expecting roughly about a 1% return, positive return for American Court of Ratsy for the quarter. If you go to the next page, page six, again, this is just the chart that I showed from the previous quarter, December 31st, 2024. Your rankings, verse your peers, as well as your performance and the benchmark performance. So cross aboard, outperforming your strategic benchmark and on a five year basis, 7.9% ranked in the top 90th percentile and about 0.3% ahead of your benchmark over that period. Page 7, these are the preliminary numbers. So again, not finalized, but looking at roughly down about 2% net affees for the fiscal year to date, 1.5% for the most recent quarter. But for the longer term, if we look at the past five years, despite the volatility in the most of quarters on a 10 on five-year basis 10.2% annualized return over nine and a half million in investment gains. So while we hate providing negative updates in the short term still happy to see those longer term numbers are holding up and that that's really what's important in terms of funding. Page eight, as I mentioned, you've already seen this chart, but we are looking at you're likely closer to 50% in terms of allocation to domestic equity with international being a little higher. Private real estate, you're probably right in line with 10% now and fixed income, you're probably closer to 23%. Allocation, and so next quarter obviously a lot has changed pretty rapidly in the market So this could be a very different picture by the time Frank presents next quarter But we'll likely do some rebalancing at that point if not sooner He may reach out with some recommendations if we see some opportunities in the market that present themselves But likely we'll be doing some rebalancing between now and next quarter. Other than that, if you go to page 11, this highlights the individual funds and so invest co-wallet led last quarter in the previous year. Down 8.1% again, its orientation to the growth companies, NVIDIA, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, while those are all down over 10%. In some cases, over 20%, it was down 8.1%. The S&P 500, which has more of a centralized blended approach with value-and-growth down just 4.3%. Mid-cap held up better, down 1.6 percent, and then what surprised us probably the most was small cap down nearly 9 percent. It's an area that's already underperformed, and so the expectation is these areas like international where they were undervalued and so they actually did well in a volatile market. We would have expected the same thing from small cap, especially considering tariffs. We expect small cap to be much less impacted because those are much more domestic focused companies versus the large cap companies that have more global presence. So a little confusing why they underperform so severely for the quarter, but again we think that's a good opportunity if we do some rebalancing, depending on where we are at from an allocation to small cap, we may bring that up to target if we're too far underweight there, just based on the valuations. As I mentioned, American Funds, you're Pacific, up about 3% compared to the benchmark, which was up 7. Two of the funds there are two of the largest holdings. Taiwan, semiconductor, that's been an area that's been hit, semiconductors, and a video falls in that space space They were down 15.6% for the quarter and then it's second largest holding novo Nordic Which is the pharmaceutical company responsible for ozimpyc They sold off by about 18% last quarter really due to competition in that Weight loss drug space they had the competitive advantage is first first mover in the market, and that's quickly pulled back as more companies have entered the space with lower cost options. So they were down 18% for the quarter. So those two holdings and their orientation to growth again cause them to underperform the benchmark. Outside of that, again, preliminary, we're expecting a positive return for American Corps Realty. We have in here 1%, so expect that to be anywhere from half a percent to 1 and a half percent. Fixed income had a great quarter, up 3% in total. Principal up 2.8, and then your Vanguard intermediate term bond, ETF up 3.1. And then cash rates continue to be high. They come down a little bit on the short end of the curve, but you still yielded about 1.5% for the quarter for your both R&D cash as well as your cash sweep with sales. So happy to see that. Again, I think that's going to be a little bit lower next quarter, probably closer to 1.2% based on where rates have come down. But still, if we're generating anywhere from 4% to 5% in cash, we're always happy to see that, especially in a volatile market. Any place as a safe haven where we can pick up a little bit of yield and not worry about the volatility is a benefit to the plan. So with that, I will conclude my report. I know you guys have been here far longer than you usually are. So I'll just open it up to any questions or any discussions. Would you like that? Any questions from board members? Nope. Nope. Nope. All right. I guess we're done, Mitchell. All right. For you. Thank you. Pedro, you got the floor. OK. Excuse me good afternoon so just wanted to update you since our last meeting just a couple changes I think mainly at the federal level which we didn't get a chance to to discuss at the last meeting not because it affects our plan but just because I wanted you all to be aware of it. There's been a lot of press about it obviously. It's the Social Security Fairness Act, and this was signed into law January 5th of this year, and essentially what it did, it repealed two provisions that had been in place for, I don't know, 40 years or so. Late 70s and early 80s, the Social Security Reduction Act and the Windfall Elimination Provision. And effectively, these two laws would lower or offset social security benefits for eligible members who also participated in a public retirement plan that did not contribute or participate in social security. So the federal government is probably the largest, the largest group of folks who would be affected by this. But here in Florida, there was about, I think I saw, the number was about 183, 185,000. Many of those are actually from one of our clients, the Jacksonville Police and Fire pension, which does not contribute to social security. But long story short, effectively, these provisions were repealed. And so those offsets, those reductions to either the retiree from the public employee plan and or their spouse will no longer take place. And so those benefits have been increased as of January 1, 2024. So they went back a year and then going forward obviously they'll be adjusted up accordinglyly so again that doesn't affect our plan doesn't affect our retirees specifically But just wanted to let you know case you need to impress somebody at a party All right And and really that's that's all I had from my prepared report. I think we did at the last meeting and I apologize. Did we go over the changes to the Florida Statute with respect to foreign countries of concern and human trafficking? I'm pretty sure we did on it. Do you guys recall that? I think so. There's a lot of personal information. We prepared a brief special report, and so again, I won't go into it, but essentially just to recap two new statutes that went into effect July 124. And in some instances, this coming July 1 of 25 just has new requirements for parties, entities, corporations, persons who are contracting with, going into a contract with a public agency such as ours. So we've complied with them. We're complying with them behind the scenes, but just wanted to let you know. There's a note on here about financial disclosure form. I'm here. Yes, I just went ahead and added that on there since that's going to be coming up. If you don't mind going over that. Yeah, so it's it is that thank you Troy. It is that time of the year again. And so by July one of each year, you are required to file the annual form one financial disclosure. Excuse me, recall as of last year it is now done online. It's done through the ethics commission, through their portal, through their web portal. It should be the same username which is the email that you were assigned by the clerk's office and the password that you probably set up last year. Should be the same log and information, same process, hopefully it will be a little bit easier this year because you kind of know what it is. But it should be done again by July 1, please. You can take care of that now. Again, you're reporting for last calendar year, right? So whatever happens this year or the next few months won't, won't matter for purposes of this file. So, but yes, if please get those in by July 1, you know, I didn't say this, but at the very latest by the end of August is when we need a done. So, July 1 is what we're looking for. Okay. Is that it? Pedro for you? Yes, sir. That's all I had from my report. Okay. We'll move on then. Old business. I don't think we have any. You know what? I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. Just, and I apologize. I know I keep jumping in. Just because we're about to end legislative session here in Florida, I just wanted to touch on it. There has not been anything filed that would affect our plan or local law plans. Obviously, something could happen in these next couple weeks, but I doubt it. The only real change that would affect us is, and it's at an actual area level, the Florida retirement system has updated its mortality tables, which means that this year we're going to have to do that as well. So, but, but legislatively no changes. All right. Sorry about that. Thank you, Pedro. No problem. All right, the next section is the consent agenda. We have a warrants for ratification that you should have seen in your packet already worn 1819 and 20 Basically bills for our different service providers foster foster sugarman and Suskind and so on so and new invoices for payment approval. There's none and Fund activity report for a period of January 3rd, 2025 through April 3rd, 2025. All that was in your packet. You should have already reviewed that. So can I get a motion to complete a consent agenda items? I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Thank you. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, like sign. Motion carries to pay the bills, so to speak. Staff reports. Discussion in action. Foster and Foster, Troy, do you have something for us? Yeah, just real quick. So we yearly we file your in your report that goes to the state, is how you get your funding That funding comes in usually in mid August That should be submitted either today or tomorrow. I just spoke to our person who is in charge of that So with getting everything put together Fire just got submitted and yours should be submitted today or tomorrow So you should be on track for your normal mid-August. Okay. Notice when we get that money back from the state. Okay. And then the other thing is just the educational opportunities. The FPBTA 44-Staniel Conference is coming up June 22nd through the 25th at the Omni Champions Gate in Orlando. I don't know that they're open yet, but if someone is interested, please send me an email. We're gonna have a new procedure because some people go for the actual certification, the CPPT certification. It's easier for us, we're coming up with a plan that we send you a request if you're interested and you're going to say yes I'm interested or and I need to have this CPT class you know I'm at this level I need to get to this. We want to make sure that we streamline ours because as we're growing we want to make sure that we don't miss anything so in streamlining it we're going to be sending you something we're in the process of drafting it and just having it looked over by the attorney real quick our foster foster attorney. Okay. So that's going to be coming up very shortly since we know this is coming up, but it's just with thousands of trustees, it's just easier for us to have a blanket form. We send it out and we can get all that information. Plus, you get a discount sometimes depending on how you sign up. If we sign up for the CPPT at the same time we sign up for the FPPTA, last year they were giving discounts. So it's easier for them instead of doing all this you know all over the year so we also want to get you that discount if anybody is. for the FPPA, last year they were giving discounts. So it was easier for them instead of doing all this, you know, all over the year. So we also want to get you that discount if anybody is interested in that. So please feel free to send me an email, send me a text, call me if you're interested, but we just want to put this out there ahead of time so that you can get your hotel booked before they fill up. Understood. Okay, other net, that's all for me. Okay, trustee reports. Brandon, would you like to talk about your conference you went to? Oh. understood. Okay, other net that's all for me. Okay, trusty reports. Brandon, would you like to talk about your conference you went to? Oh, just yeah, so I thought it was great. As you guys saw earlier I learned some stuff and it was really nice for me to be able to attend that conference. I was able to select some of the topics that like I thought and felt meet met my my knowledge needs. And so I definitely think that as a new member it was educational for me and it was it was good for me to go to and learn. I've been to a couple of those in years past when I was still working and they were very informative because this it could be very intimidating here what you're yes taking in and trying to have an understanding of everything from the financial side to the law side There's a lot to it. I now understand what an actuary is Actually, I shouldn't say that. I now have a general idea They figure stuff they cypher I think we all have a little trouble reading some of those starts What's that? What's that? The FPPA conference? It was. Okay. Good. Yeah, I saw that you win. I think we all have a little trouble reading some of those starts. But, um, X went. What's that? The FPPA conference? It was. Okay. Good. Yeah, I saw that you went. I'm glad you did because it's important as a trustee to take your fiduciary responsibility series. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm good. I'm good. You're good. Okay. is Thursday, July 10th, 2025 at two o'clock market calendars. And if we have nothing else, we will adjourn the meeting. I was just quickly gonna add, and Pedro, please chime in. I know it's a during COVID when we were meeting infrequently and there was a lot of volatility in the market. A lot of the boards we worked with provided authority for the chairman to work with Frank Arquit-Solten. If there was a rebalance needed between meetings, would you like that option now or would you just like Frank to provide the recommendation at the next quarterly meeting? That's a good point. I know that occurred with Tom, with John Thompson a lot. Him and Frank spoke often. I'm not opposed to doing that, but I think when we make decisions, I would want to involve the rest of the board, but it'd be nice to know in advance what's going on and what the recommendations are. Sure, yeah. So I guess that's kind of a middle of a road answer. Yeah, Pedro, is there any, I guess, would you have any recommendation as a way of accomplishing if we needed to rebalance between quarters for Frank to provide a recommendation in the board to consider it? So Yeah, I guess there's a couple of ways that we can do it the board can authorize the chairman to approve any recommendations, you know kind of in this vein made from Burgess Chambers and Associates. And then have that action ratified at the next meeting. It doesn't have to be the chairman, it could be any member of the board, but that would be one process. Obviously the board can always call a special meeting, although logistically that gets a little bit difficult. But, or the board can just simply authorize, frank in yourself, to go ahead and make those changes, obviously as fiduciaries yourselves, consistent with our policy and what's going on in the market, and then just have you report back to the board at the next meeting. Well, so if I understand what you're requesting, as you need to make some immediate market changes and you wanna get that approved, is that right? Yeah, for instance, if the market goes down another 10, another 15, another 20% and we see an opportunity that you may need to rebalance and this would all be done within the parameters of your investment policy statement. We wouldn't be changing any of that. But if there's an opportunity that we think the board should consider rebalancing and it's prior to the next quarterly meeting, we certainly wouldn't want to deprive you of that opportunity. Well I'm a little reluctant to take on as a chairman the responsibility of making a financial decision like that even with the sound advice of Burgess Chambers. I would prefer that's done with the full board. However, you know I'm not opposed to doing it under very limited circumstances if it's just an opportunity that we have to act on immediately to leverage so yeah so that's another middle of the road. There is specific situations that we did it in February and March of 2020 at the pandemic bottom yeah so it would be something like that again just getting you back in line with your cards. Well, I'm not opposed to talking to Frank about it. I know John Thompson was a money guy. You know, I'm just an amateur money guy. So I'm just a little reluctant to do it, but I like to learn a little bit more about it. Sure. Okay. Yeah, I would not have a problem with that because I don't think I know enough about Making those kind of decisions and that's what we essentially pay you a fee to do. Yes, so If you get an emergency and you say I got to move out of the The domestic I got to move out of the farm I got to move more in the domestic because the tariffs are going out of control I would not have a problem with you doing it and report back to the board because I think that's what I'm paying you for is to maximize the return for the fund. I agree with you, Palmer. That's the preferred method, I think. So I trust Frank explicitly and I guess I trust you, Mitchell. Thank you. Do we need a motion? Yeah, I was just saying. I drove,win need a motion for to allow PCA to make a rebalance based on exigent circumstances prior to the next board meeting. Is that make? Yes, sir. So, right. So the board would authorize the motion to re-authorize your consultant, Virgist Chambers and Associates, to make any necessary rebalances in their discretion based on market conditions. I make that motion. I'll second it. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, like sign? Okay, the motion carries. And I guess the only thing I would ask is if, you know, whenever something does happen, if, you know, we shoot an email or something just to the administrators so that we can disseminate it to the board. And then obviously you're going to report it at the next meeting, but just in between, I think that way, everybody will be on the same page. Yeah, that's fine with me. Yes. We would reach out directly to the chairman and include you as well as the plan administrator on it because we don't have authority to make the trade yourself to provide that direction that will give you to the custodian. But we'll go to the chairman. We'll copy your attorney as well as your plan administrator to make sure all parties are notified. Okay. Thanks for bringing that up Mitchell. Any other business, last minute minute items Okay, well that will adjourn the meeting All right everybody take care