Commissioner Lopez.

I do think it is important that an analysis is presented based on the minimum, the 10 steps.

So when you're asking your representative to trade by that we understand as the public why you are doing those decisions, but the law guides the decision the flow and the discussion in terms of the decisions that I make, but ultimately the and your spending, right?

Like, so if there's liquidity that I need, and I can't reinvest because I have to meet payroll, or because I have to send money to the Bureau of Workers' Comp, or because we have bond payments due, those are the things that I'm taking into account under the provision of liquidity.

I guess if it's constantly happening, that is constantly happening every single day.

Every single day.

I am looking at what we have in Star Ohio, what we have in every bank account, what's maturing, what the liquidity needs are, and making an assessment based on the information that I have at the time, whether or not we should reinvest, whether or not we should buy one year commercial paper, um, you know, uh a three-year bond, etc.

Under the terms that the code outlines, it governs every decision that I make.

So I am fine with adding this language, but what I am not fine is then having to send an email, or uh, you know, create some sort of document that doesn't already exist in our process, given the fact that the code covers my response.

Okay, well, and I just want to make it clear with Commissioner Lopez that I am doing precisely this.

I for myself, I think I'd like to just, since I'm a member of this an advisory committee, I think I would like to see just one day when you're making those decisions and be on the phone with Jim McCourt to say why are we moving these funds today?

Why does it have to happen?

Commissioner Lopez, you are welcome to come down to my office and meet with the chief investment officer and myself.

I would be glad to walk you through the analysis that we have, the spreadsheets that we keep, the information that we keep.

Um, you know, the form six is um is uh submitted as you well know to the auditor's office on a daily basis that gives a total picture of the cash uh position of the county on a daily basis.

On a monthly basis, I am providing this committee with reports of every uh investment that we have, um, everywhere they're located, why we're doing what we're doing, and until we started having these meetings where 100 people are in attendance, we were able to talk about kind of the liquidity needs and some of the other considerations that I as a partner to the county commissioners uh would like to communicate, but we really haven't been able to get past and have those legitimate conversations because we've been stuck on this.

I am fine with every investment.

I am fine with that, but what I am not okay with is creating something in my policies and processes that doesn't already exist, such as um, you know, a form or a uh my amendment doesn't speak to any of that, it's that you keep our advice in mind, not just on reinvestments, but on all investments, why limit it just to the reinvestments.

Fine, fine.

Okay.

Oh, go ahead, I'm sorry.

This is your duties, right?

Yes.

Yes.

Why would I want to underfer with your duties of treasure?

I wouldn't want anybody coming up here with my duties.

Why are we doing this?

She's a treasurer, she's been responsible.

It is her job to invest the money.

It's the voters that elect her.

If she's not investing the money correctly, and we're falling behind something, that's up to the voters to decide.

Not us.

I mean, we are here as an advisory committee to her, but I am not gonna sit here and take the treasurer's duties away from her.

I'm not gonna limit her what she can and to uh investments.

I won't let her make the decisions for the best county.

Thank you.

Maybe I'll be able to clarify.

I'm not asking to her to do that either, uh clerk.

I am referencing to the role of this advisory committee.

And it says we should advise her.

This is what I'm trying to do.

It it broadens the advice from just reinvestment or investment seriously, just to say to be consistent.

Then all investments, not just reinvestment, in no way, shape, or form, and I don't want to miscommunicate this.

Am I telling her to create extra processes to do that?

We are we are by statute an advisory committee, so and I think when I put the word advise in there on all matters, not just reinvestment.

It's fair and it's probably pretty sound public policy.

This is not in any way asking her to call us every day and say I'm gonna move money from here and there.

I understand.

It's an advisory committee.

I understand, but I've been on this committee for like 24, 25 years, and we have never run under the situation.

Okay.

World's the world changes.

Right.

I can't see the treasure call me.

I can't see the creditor call me every time she wants.

I'm not asking to do that with these amendments.

I'm asking.

I am not doing that.

Make it clear one more time.

You made it clear.

You've made it clear.

I'm asking her to follow taking the advice on all investments, not just three investments.

Commissioner Lopez.

Treasure Webb.

I know I just want to make sure you understand why I'm asking questions and why it's important for you to realize that when a hundred people or two people show up and they question what I am doing as an elected official and the law, regardless of it's one time in the last 25 years, there have been many laws on the books that have been challenged by citizens that should never have existed in the first place.

Women did not have the right to vote, but for hundreds, then thousands showing up to question it.

African Americans did not have the right to vote, and they were considered property until hundreds and two, then three, then hundreds, then thousands question the law.

We are obligated to challenge ourselves and reflect on whether the law is in its best state to serve the public, and it does evolve and it does change, and I'm not trying to be critical of you, and I do not want to do your job.

I want to make sure that as an advisory committee, we are fully engaged in dialogue, and yes, I can admit that in 2024 I was not questioning it, but when individuals did show up and call and email me from the Jewish Federation and from the Palestinians who have been family members who've been harmed there, I did start to research and read and pay more attention, and I hope I would.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's fine.

And my offer to come down and and visit with myself and the chief investment officer stands.

Um, so going through the resolution, then commissioner, there is a change in line two, which says um uh the original uh resolution says the committee's role is to help ensure the county investment practices are consistent with Ohio law, the county's investment policy, and the production protection of public funds.

Yours says uh the committee's role is to help ensure that county investment practices are consistent with Ohio law, the county's investment policy, and to ensure the best and safest return of funds available to the county for permitted deposits or investments.

Why that change?

No, wait, wait, wait.

All right, well, I think it clarifies our role as advisory commitment committee.

I think it's clarifying and amplified, um, the protection of public funds is is the paramount consideration.

Safety is first.

So uh my question is, um, I I guess I don't understand permitted deposits or investments, that language.

I I'm not sure I understand why what are you trying to accomplish there?

I'm trying to amplify and clarify what our role here is, what your advice we're giving you, advice that we're giving to you.

Advice is a suggestion, right?

This is a suggestion.

This is a county policy.

Is our role as IAC to advise and suggest to you?

None of that you have or what I have in my amendments takes that authority away.

It just kind of gives a nod to the fact that we are an investment board, and you should listen to our suggestions and take that.

That's just a clarification.

Would you be willing to amend that to say our practices are consistent with Ohio law, the county's investment policy?

And mine says the protection of public funds.

I'm sorry, which one I'll have.

I'm on to I'm on the second whereas.

I can take that out.

Okay.

So but we all agree that the protection of public funds is paramount.

I think what it says is to ensure the best and safest return of funds available for the county.

Okay, fine.

I think you heard public comment to that today.

Yep.

So if you would if you want to delete under a whereas, uh permitted investment deposits or investments, okay.

Um whereas.

Okay.

Um with respect to um the case by case review upon maturity.

Okay.

Um we've talked about that.

Um you're adding item 11 written county policies and resolutions established by the committee.

Um Mr.

Burrell, what prompted the AG's opinion was the um written uh uh amendment or advice that was proffered to me last fall.

So how does that um the Ohio law says that basically I have to follow the law and I can't take into account something that is not legal, um, and I have to fulfill my fiduciary obligation, even if I'm being advised by this committee to do so.

But my question to you is um, is this as written?

Does it require me to follow something that is not permitted under Ohio law?

No, it doesn't.

Okay.

I would make one suggestion if it's could we say the lawful written county policies and resolutions established by the committee?

Is that to suggest that they're unlawful ones?

It could be we don't know that at this point, so I would I I would stand on it's we're just asking you to follow the written county policies and resolutions, and we have one.

The resolution that we adopted was the public comment resolution, but the the other uh advice um uh is is at issue here.

Um are you comfortable with uh the written county policies?

And resolutions.

Okay.

So that's enough.

Okay.

Um those are important, we have resolved.

Mr.

Burrell, is there a distinction between in your in your mind uh guidance versus policy and advice?

But there would be.

There would be a distinction between investment policies and other types of resolutions.

Say that again, I'm sorry.

There's a distinction between the this committee's investment policies and other resolutions like the public comment.

So there's there's going to be a difference.

Um I think your question is about guidance or yeah.

I mean, I mean what what I had proposed just to take the words guidance out and to use uh uh you know our our policies, okay.

Advice and policies, and and that's our nature is advisory committee to give you advice and policies again.

You have made it repeatedly clear that you are the ultimate authority at the end, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, um thank you for entertaining questions on your motion uh to amend um and I guess we're not following Robert's rules of order.

That's not um so um I think we have a motion and a second on the original memo uh memo as we're not we're not gonna recognize members of the public the public comment portion as concluded uh the are we following the auto the the um the uh audience is encouraged to come to order um and um and be mindful of disruption um at this point um we have a motion and a second on the original uh motion um there has been an amendment proffered uh mr borrell how would you advise that we proceed to just vote on the amendment first we're voting on commissioner gherkin's amendment on the amendment first and and and is it fair commissioner gherkin to submit it as a um as a individual or as one entire motion up to somebody like I would say it's one it's it's it's one there's not that many in there it's just clarifying it's amplifying and it's giving guidance give some precedence for our I would say all of it with the changes that were agreed to what you'll number 11 the only uh one I agreed to was in the whereas right or it said for that that is something that you agree to but you did not agree to 11 which is the lawful using the word lawful i i my amendment says policies and resolutions I'm not sure we've done anything unlawful to quite have a qualifying word but it would not hurt just to say we don't intend to advise her to do something illegal at this point on the existing law so let me take this right to the point of the tip of the spear here okay is it your intention by putting the word lawful in there to neuter or mute the resolution of last October I just want to make it clear that quite frankly that I am expected to follow the law and do my job as the fiduciary treasurer of the county that's the whole point of this resolution I'll ask again is it the intention then of this board is with the inclusion of the word lawful or not to dismiss neuter or mute the resolution I'm not sure I see it that way Commissioner.

I'm asking you a question I understand and I'm I'm giving you an honest answer.

Yes I'm not sure I I see it that way and you're not gonna compel a yes or no answer from me so we have a motion we have a motion to amend and the one uh slight change to the amendment this we'll we'll call it the substitute resolution is to uh to remove to put a period after the word county in the in the first whereas otherwise all the existing uh amendments from the counter proposal from commissioner gherkin are one motion and I will call the question on that um commissioner sebe do you uh approve of commissioner gherkin's motion no uh no uh commissioner votes no commissioner Lopez do you support commissioner gherkin's motion to amend the draft resolution yes clerk of court quilter do you support commissioner gherkin's motion to amend the resolution yes commissioner our treasurer web do you accept uh the motion and the answer is no I do not commissioner gherkin's motion to amend the resolution I didn't vote yet yes I'm sorry I thought I went to you first I got you thank you so your your vote is yes commissioner it is.

Okay.

Your motion carried.

The draft resolution with the changes before us is is now before us, and we will vote on uh the emotion, including um the changes that commissioner gherkin described um I will call the question.

Commissioner Sabeki.

No.

Commissioner Lopez.

Yes.

Commissioner Gherkin.

Yes.

Commissioner.

I'm sorry, Clerk of Court Quilter.

Okay.

No.

The motion carries.

The draft resolution is adopted.

And I thank you all for your uh lovely debate.

Um okay, back to the agenda.

Um we have brought our investment advisor up from Columbus again to provide a presentation for us to review the fund and do the portfolio review, which quite frankly is exactly what uh Commissioner Lopez, you were suggesting that you wanted to see.

Um this is regularly made available to you.

Um, and so um Jim McCourt, the floor is yours.

Well, and it's not just seeing but hearing and the analysis, because it seems like it's not written anywhere.

But an analysis, something that says this, this is why I'm doing this based on the 11 or the 10 items that you've listed.

But I would like to learn more in detail.

That would be good.

I will send you an invite to come visit us on the fifth floor.

Thank you.

Um, Jim, are you ready for your presentation?

Okay.

Good afternoon now.

Hold on, thank you.

All right, so I'm Jim McCourt with meter public funds.

We are an SEC registered investment advisor and serve as the the county's uh fiduciary investment advisor to assist in managing the investment portfolio.

Yeah, we're blocking.

Jim, if you can like speak in a little more.

I'll speak a little louder.

So, and I'll be relatively brief on these comments.

We typically start with a a review of of the market and and federal reserve policy and what's affecting interest rates directly because ultimately this is a fixed income portfolio that is buying interest rate type products.

So that the Fed policy and what's happening in market interest rates directly affects the county's investment income that is derived from this portfolio.

So when we as we've talked about for the last year and a half now, the Fed has been in a had been in an environment of starting of reducing their monetary policy, their their overnight target uh interest rate, the federal the federal funds rate.

They cut by 25 basis points each meeting 0.25% for the last three meetings of 2025 to get to the current Fed funds target rate of three and a half to 3.75%.

Then when we last met a quarter ago, they had they had held off on continuing that rate reduction in January, and it was widely expected that they would pause for a few meetings, but then likely continue to reduce rates at some point in 2026.

And the main thing that's happened between last meeting and this meeting is that that sentiment has largely changed in the marketplace over these last few months.

There has been a renewed pressure on on inflation in in the marketplace, which generally, when you have uh higher inflation, it tends to lead to be interest rates higher in theory to try to push down price pressure.

We've also had, as we all know, the start of the war in Iran, which is significantly spiked uh energy prices, which is are leading to further fueling the the inflationary pressure across the marketplace.

So when you're looking at the the chart here of what the market is projecting for the Fed funds rate by the end of this year, you can see that through the first couple months of the year, the market was expecting two maybe two to three rate cuts by the end of 2026, additional rate cuts, and now that that has largely been eliminated from projections.

And at this point, the market is really anticipating a higher likelihood of the next move being a rate hike rather than a rate cut.

We'll see whether that really does play out that way.

It's going to continue to be data dependent, continue to uh look at the Fed's dual mandate of of maximum employment and and price stability measured by inflation, so they'll continue to uh evaluate those data as they come in.

Uh, it will also be dependent on how how quickly we can get some resolutions to to the war and what that how that continues to affect the inflation outlook as well.

Uh also there is a a new Fed chairman in place that's taking over this week that um I think the market and is is interested in hearing his views on what the Fed's role is in general, if there's going to be much difference in the Fed's uh overall influence on on the economy and on monetary policy and how much consensus he's able to build amongst the other Fed members because I'll remind you that everything that every vote that comes out of the Fed is by committee, it's not by one person.

So even though even though there's a new chairman, it will depend on how the committee's uh views evolve over these next several months.

So the market's still trying to learn a lot from that.

So in the meantime, long way of saying what this is, what's happened over the last couple of uh of weeks in particular, that maybe going back to to the beginning of the war, but definitely over the last couple of weeks, market rates, not just short-term rates that are controlled by the Fed, but market rates in general have started to drift back up again, just with the anticipation that the Fed will likely not be cutting short-term rates immediately.

So that's allowed market rates to at least temporarily move a little bit higher again, which for portfolios like this, for your types of investments, that's allowing you to invest, reinvest at higher rates than we've been able to over the last several months, last year, year and a half.

So it's providing a renewed opportunity, at least in my view, because and I don't I don't know what's going to happen as far as how policy eventually moves, but I think this this is a relatively attractive point in the market.

And I'll flip a couple of s slides further to the let me go two more, one more.

This is the this is the the market yields.

This goes back a couple of decades to give you some context of the types of rates that we are able to buy for your portfolio.

So, what we're looking at here is the Fed funds rate with the orange line.

That that's the Fed's overnight monetary policy rate.

The greenish line is the two-year treasury rate.

Treasury rates are our benchmark reference points of fixed income asset investments.

So either we buy treasuries or any other types of investment, eligible investment that we're able to buy would have theoretically a little bit of additional yield above a treasury rate.

But in general, those are the types of rates that you're able to buy at those particular points in time.

So you can see that from 2008, mid-great financial crisis, really until 2021, with a little bit of a blip in there from 2016 to 2018, rates were extremely low.

The Fed had a zero percent interest rate policy for a lot of those years as they were trying to stimulate a slowing economy.

Then when COVID happened, the Fed cut rates again to zero, we we all remember the the resulting significant surge in inflation when we had a lot of stimulus come into the economy then.

So that's why the Fed raised rates so dramatically in 2021.

So that has led us to the last few years of having again these relatively historically high levels of interest rates, able to buy these investments for your portfolio, which, as we'll get to in a second, has resulted in record amounts of investment income that the portfolio's been generating over the last few years, which contributes to the ability of the the county to set budgets based on income that this portfolio is generating.

Now you'll notice that over the last year and a half, the Fed funds rate and market rates in general have started to decline because of that the Fed reducing their monetary policy.

But just recently, and this chart only goes we updated this on May 8th.

Even since then, over the last couple of weeks, you see that that two-year treasury has started to move back up.

It's continued to move further to where it's about 4.1% today.

The five-year treasury is back up at about four and a quarter.

So we have compared to where we've been over the last several months, some again, some uh like I referenced before, some higher rates to be able to invest in for this portfolio.

So that just gives you a sense of the types of uh of interest rate market that we are in right now.

It should be noted that our ability to reinvest is directly tied to the county's liquidity needs.

So if our liquidity needs increase dramatically, my ability to take advantage of this rising rate environment is diminished.

And so, um, and the tie then, of course, is that, and for members of the public, I will reiterate this yet again.

These investments drive the second and or third largest source of income for the county.

So every time I invest these and I get a rate of return of the overall portfolio, which Jim will highlight, that I am keeping the investment portfolio income higher for the county to help meet the needs of the county.

So if suddenly the county decides to spend a lot of money very quickly and needs 50 million dollars for one reason or another, that directly affects my ability to reinvest because I would have to use those investments to meet the liquidity needs of the county.

So that's the challenge here is that on the one hand where we are investing for resources, and you will see what our projected income is for the investment portfolio.

And then secondarily, if we do not have the ability to reinvest in any security, then necessarily the portfolio income of the county will decline.

All good points.

Now to segue what what the treasurer is saying to the portfolio on the next slide.

Yeah, one more right here.

So this is a summary of the county's portfolio through through April.

I did this a month further just to get the most recent reporting data in here.

So the top line you see the Star Ohio and and cash balances.

So these are essentially uh when the treasurer for refers to liquidity, those that portion of the portfolio is all in daily liquid investments.

So Star Ohio and local banks that the that the county has has deposits in are accessible on a daily basis uh without any sort of of penalty or or market risk.

You you can you have dollar in dollar out, and then you're in the uh associated interest on those.

So we're constantly in talks with the treasurer and her office to evaluate that cash position to make sure that the that she has a comfortable level of cash to be able to meet all of the obligations, immediate upcoming obligation that's that she, you know, the her office has to pay on behalf of the county.

Uh, but the there, but that the office also is not excessively liquid because especially in this environment where market rates are relatively high, and you want to take this opportunity to lock in these rates for the longer term, we want to make sure that you're not being excessively liquid with what you keep in overnight investments, and you're moving what you're able to out into the market to lock in longer term returns.

So that's part of the ongoing conversation that we continually have with the Treasury.

And it it bears noting for all three commissioners here that this is um the Star Ohio and cash balances includes every bank account that we have in the county right now, but this is as of April 30th.

Today is the 22nd of May, and we were um at 35 million dollars um in terms of um uh Star Ohio and cash balances, and um and that dipped even lower for a period of time.

To be honest with you, I haven't seen that um that degree of a drop in Star Ohio this early in the year.

So I'm just previewing that as a consideration for the commissioners as they go forward.

So you're saying currently as of today, it's what is the number of about 35 million.

So it's dropped.

That's significant since yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

And what when you're looking at the the portfolio, so the securities book value is what's in uh held in in in custody at what is now Argent Institutional Trust used to be used to be Huntington.

Uh that's where where all the the longer term investments are held.

So when you look at those securities, that's what the maturity distribution on the bottom is represented of how that 491 million dollars is invested out to really the maximum maturity for for most eligible investments in Ohio is five years.

So you're looking out on this five-year uh investment horizon.

So you can see that the 491 million is roughly equal out in as far as the zero to one, the one to two and so forth out to your your your five-year buckets, and every and there's many underlying investments in all of those uh annual buckets, and every day they're all getting a day closer to maturity.

So you're fighting an aging of the portfolio all the time, and you want to be either reinvesting maturities or modify maybe selling some invest current investments of the portfolio and generally moving them out longer if you're if your goal is to keep or or extend the duration of the portfolio, which you can see the weighted average maturity of the whole portfolio right at about two and a half years is a is a good range that we're comfortable with.

So we're trying to maintain that weighted average maturity roughly in that range of of two and a half years.

The weighted average yield to maturity, each of these bonds that you buy has a yield to maturity that represents what your the return will be if you hold that bond to maturity, and then all of them together, you know the you the yields representative of the time that you buy it, and all those bonds weighted together will get you that total weighted average yield of maturity.

That 3.94% has been on an uptick for the last several year years as the portfolio has been reinvesting into what's been a higher interest rate market, despite the Fed cutting rates by uh by one and a half percent over 1.75% over the last year and a half, the portfolio has still been moving upward, and it you you can see of that trend is actually likely to continue for a little while longer because when you look at that maturity distribution, the line graph that's overlaying it shows the weighted average yield of all of the investments within each annual bucket, and the sh the lowest yields are still coming out of that zero to one year portion at about three and a half percent, currently going back into the market at roughly four to four and a quarter in today's environment that which will continue to move that overall yield up a little bit longer.

And so, even though the Fed has been on pause right now, it's not to say that they'll indefinitely be on pause, and so the the to want to take advantage of the rate environment that we're in in our view to continue to lock these rates in and sort of protect the county's portfolio in case the Fed does continue to start cutting rates later this year into next year or whenever that might might resume.

Mr.

McCord, can we go back to the Star Ohio thing?

I'm sorry, I know you move past it, but I thought of a question to do that.

It says here it's 63 million, and Treasurer Webb said it's been reduced to 35 million in the last 30 days, is that correct?

Not even what to what?

Um 35 million.

I mean, I'd have to look exactly today.

What accounts for the loss of cash reserve cash?

Um I asked the question of your office and ban uh management and budget, and they supplied um and fund balances and projections.

Um but there was um you know it's significant expenditure from uh the uh Board of Developmental Disabilities, um, and um you know uh there is just there is a projection of somewhere between 75 and 90 million dollars out of reserve funds to be spent this year.

Last year that number was 50 million, and that in fact was expended last year.

So um throughout the course of last year, the investment portfolio dropped by 50 million dollars.

This year it's projected to drop, depending on what happens, by another 75 million.

And so the number that you see the portfolio continues to shrink as we meet the liquidity needs.

What Mr.

McCourt is suggesting is that we need to reinvest to keep the investment income higher, but the pressure will come by spending out of the reserve funds, and it's board of DD, it's um uh the facilities department.

Um I could go on and on, but from what I can tell.

So we're doing we get any revenue back in after the Chai collections of taxes?

Yeah.

So this is we're kind of in the waning of the taxes are collected in January and July, right?

So we're spending now what we collected in January, right?

There should be some in some liquidity back in with second half income tax collection.

Yeah, yes.

My point in raising this, Commissioner, is that this is the earliest liquidity crunch that we've seen in my time in the Treasury, and the projections are what the projections are.

Um, and we don't yet know what tax collection's gonna look like.

And what I do know for sure is that the spending out of reserves was projected to be $50 million dollars, and lo and behold, at the close of last year, the reserve fund of the county's total portfolio drop by $50 million.

And the next page I think gives some good context to monitoring just the overall asset balances, cash flows of the county's portfolio over the last uh we have five years on here.

And so this shows the relationship between the the bottom light shade is the investment, the core investment portfolio, the securities, and then the other the top part of the bars is the liquidity balances, and you can see how the the portfolio size has fluctuated as look as the overall balances have fluctuated.

And to your point, Commissioner, the the extreme outliers in there are the twice a year uh periods of property tax collections where you're you where you'll receive significant liquidity and actually able to generate some nice return on that liquidity, and Star Ohio has been a very nice overnight yield for the last few years.

So during those six or eight weeks or however long it is that you have the property tax collections until they're distributed back out uh to the political subdivisions, that isn't a nice uh, sure.

There's another opportunity for that in July.

Correct.

There'll be another there'll be another property tax right collection coming here influx.

So you can you can see that you know during on the right hand side of the page during January and February during collections, they were elevated.

Disbursements happened, that liquidity balance dwindles.

So that's where we're keeping an eye on those periods where it gets tight.

And so to the treasurer's point, we know we we this is a good opportunity to be able to reinvest into the market, but we have to do it with a secondary that's a secondary uh aspect to making sure that there's enough cash available for any any ongoing needs.

So that's that's what we're watching, and that will determine the ultimate size of the core portion of the investment portfolio, whether we need to start pulling any maturities back, moving them over to a liquidity bucket like Star Ohio, or whether we're able to reinvest into the current environment.

Whatever that size ends up being, we'll like we'll try to maintain a similar profile of the portfolio as far as the maturity distribution, and that's why if there are continued maturities that just don't get reinvested, we would likely start to look at other parts of the portfolio and sell some other securities that are that are starting to roll down and move them out to be able to try to maintain that duration with what is left in the portfolio to be able to lock what we can in for as long as we can.

The next page looks at the investment income that's uh generated, the cash basis realized investment income that's generated on the this is just on the securities.

So this doesn't include the the the Star Ohio or the bank balances, what they're what they're the additional income that they're generating, but just this core investment portfolio, as it's been the treasurer's been appropriately over the last few years building the size of the core portfolio to capitalize on this higher rate market, so both the increased size of the portfolio and the higher rate market has resulted in increased income, as you can see on the page over the last few years.

So this portfolio generating 8.1 million in 2023 up to 15.6 million in 2025, and then what you're looking at uh in the current year is about 5.3 million, almost 5.4 million realized through the first four months of the year, and then based only on the bonds that are currently in the portfolio, what your projections are for the remainder of this year, and then into 27 and 28 as well.

That is only on existing securities.

So that is essentially if you don't do anything else, but you do let the bonds you own go to maturity, this is what you would realize.

So you would you're still gonna see a nice increase this year, uh up seven, what is that, 17 and a half, pushing 18 million uh being generated from the portfolio.

And then if you do have the ability to reinvest or to put additional investments, additional funds to work in the portfolio, that 2027 number will likely only continue to rise, and then 2028 as well.

In this market, I would think that we can get the 27 should be roughly equal to or exceed 26, and a similar move for 2028.

Beyond that, it's a little tough to say where interest rates are gonna be that far down the road.

But the idea is that if we are in a lower rate environment, that the portfolio would decline at a much slower uh pace because you have a lot of these currently attractive rates locked in.

So I think that it's that's why these conversations are important to be able to understand the liquidity needs, so that we're maximizing what we can, but that again that's all the the return that we're trying to maximize is the third in the priority of safety and liquidity and making sure that the treasurer has uh what she needs on hand to make sure the the county continues to operate, there's two more pages in here that just touch briefly on the clerk of courts portfolio because we manage that separately as well, very similar strategy for the $6.7 million that we're managing for that portfolio.

Uh, you can see a very similar yield of 3.95%.

Um and then the next page just looks at the investment income.

You can see a similar trend for the the clerk of court's portfolio, uh, which would be generating roughly 250,000 this year on that six point seven million.

Okay.

Thank you, Jim.

You're welcome.

And then um we'll go uh briefly to my presentation, um, which basically just shows the first quarter interest distribution.

These are the separately accounted for funds, so the general fund, um, those those are separately accounted for, so the general fund received 4.8, but the overall interest um for the first quarter was one point uh five point one.

So that's standard, and this will show you the three year revenue comparison.

Um this includes um all sources of revenue, including Star Ohio.

So it does uh show that um you know that we are performing uh over where we were the last couple years in the first quarter, um, with those caveats, and then this shows you uh kind of uh um in general um how much monthly interest we're receiving from Star Ohio and what the rate is, um and that's the uh 30-day yield what we're seeing.

Um and STAR is great, um, while rates are high.

But if the feds start cutting rates, having a significant portion in star means that ultimately we could get walked off a cliff in terms of that extra investment income.

So, you know, we're constantly monitoring that to make sure that we have sufficient liquidity to meet the county's needs, but also um that we um have as much as we can in the managed portfolio to lock in the returns over time, and um we're down to 21,000 to um spend for ARPA.

So we're almost there.

Um and that is it on my um my report.

Is there any other business before the committee?

Come on.

Commissioners, do we know how much money we bring in from a walleye and a mud ends?

How much money we bring in from the walleye and the mud ends, just curious.

You could email me.

I just want to know approximately.

Okay.

Is that being invested in?

Is that being invested in with us?

I think you have to pay the R debt.

That pays the debt.

Pays our debt that we currently have.

That that's a debt repayment stream.

Thank you.

Okay, any other business properly before the committee?

I would uh entertain a motion to adjourn.

Second motion by Clerk of Court Quilter, second by uh Commissioner Sabacki, all in favor?

Aye, meeting adjourned.

Thank you.

Okay, I'll have that for later.

I don't know what I know, I don't know.

I know about the bank, right?

Yeah, this is important.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to read it.

You're gonna give it to me and then I wouldn't need it.

Or she may just have a three.

I just love spending.

Okay.

I'm gonna have a lot of people.

All right.

Anyways, I'm gonna go to Tiger May.

And uh, swing my money.

Yeah, that's it.

I might I might try a