APFC Board: APFC BOT September Regular Meeting

Okay, we're on the record. Good afternoon, everyone. It's 1:03 on September 2nd, uh, convening today's Board of Trustees regular meeting, uh, here in Juneau, Alaska. Uh, Jennifer, could you please do roll call?

Trustee Schatz.

Here. Trustee Earls. Here. Trustee Samuels. Here.

Um, Trustee Anderson will be with us shortly, I believe. Um, and Trustee Binkley will be joining us shortly. Uh, Chair Bruni. Here. We have a quorum.

Thank you very much. As always, let's now go to the approval of the agenda. Sure. Could I get a motion for approval, please? I move approval of the agenda, please.

Thank you, Vice Chair Chut. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Trustee Samuels. Any additions or Corrections to the agenda.

Hearing none, is there any opposition to the agenda? The agenda is approved. We'll now go to the minutes of our May 26th and 27th meeting from Valdez. Uh, could I please get a motion for approval? I move approval of the minutes from our Valdez meeting.

Second. Thank you, Vice President. And a second from Trustee Samuels. Any Additions or corrections? Any opposition?

Hearing none, the minutes from the Valdez meeting are approved. We've now been joined by Commissioner Trustee Ryan Anderson.

We will now open it up for public participation. As I've always said, we welcome the public's input.

The public can submit comments, [email protected], or they can call in right now if they're on by either raising your hand on the Teams function or pressing star— star 5, sorry, star 5 for anyone that's on the phone. So if You are interested in giving public testimony, please, please raise your hand right now. Remind everyone, we will also have another opportunity at the end of the meeting.

Jennifer, anyone with their hand raised? Anyone in the room that would like to give public comment? Staff, have you been silenced so much by the leadership that, uh, I joke.

Okay, well, see, want me to pick one?

Yeah, yeah, it's like law school. He's just gonna call. Yeah, yeah, Socratic method. Chris, you'll be called up multiple times, I'm sure, today. So Marbury v. Madison, right?

Indeed. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Scott Jones to the team. Good to have you here. Congratulations on the gig. We look forward to working more with you.

Thank you. Seeing no one— Jennifer, you look perplexed. Is there someone that might be interested? I'm helping Trustee Binkley. Oh, got it.

Okay, then we'll close public comment and we will move on to committee reports. And we'll start with Governance Committee and Vice Chair— Chair of the committee, Chair Schutt.

Anything you want to report? Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. The Governance Committee of APFC met on July 20th in Juneau. The sole topic of the committee meeting was to discuss the topic of benchmarks and to formalize a process and written policy around the review, review of affirmation or confirmation to continue using benchmarks and to have a formalized process for evaluating changes for proposed new benchmarks and to make those recommendations to the full Board of Trustees for their approval or, or not.

So in that process, we reviewed a draft charter had extensive discussion, consulted our independent advisors and, and the Callan consultants with whom we work regularly. And while this is not the norm within the institutional investor and funds like our public funds like ours, it is kind of, we hope, going to become a best practice for people to, or for institutions to to follow our lead in establishing a more formal process around benchmarks because of the incentives that they can put in staff and making their investment decisions if there are mismatches between the benchmark utilized and the portfolio in reality. So we had good extensive discussion, had expert outside input, and reviewed the draft charter for that would establish a process as well as a benchmark committee.

And that was the— as I mentioned at the beginning, that was the whole of the topic for the meeting and well thought through, and we had a good discussion. Thank you, Chair Schutt. Any Questions of Ethan on that? Devin. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Just to note that we'll bring that charter to the Board of Trustees at the annual meeting, so the upcoming meeting. Thank you, Devin. Other comments?

All right. Thank you, Chair Shutt. This morning we held a Ethics, audit, and cybersecurity meeting. Uh, Chair Anderson, would you care to report? Yeah.

So, um, I guess when we met, we had an audit report from KPMG. Uh, we had a detailed review of the FY26 grant financial statements. We also had a cybersecurity update as well as an ethics update. So we did fulfill our mandate, I think, as the ethics Cybersecurity and Audit Committee. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Chair. Questions for Chair Anderson?

Hearing none, we can get a brief report of the annual audit. For those interested in detailed, you can go back and watch this morning's committee meeting, but we're going to reinvite KPMG up to the table to— and Val, I'm assuming, are you going to come to the table too? Nope, just KPMG.

Chair Burney, Trustee Binkley is online. Oh, great. We've been joined by Trustee John Binkley. Welcome, John.

And Beth and Melissa, welcome back. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to the trustees.

Beth Stewart with KPMG. I served as the lead audit engagement partner for the Alaska Permanent Fund audit. Joined by Melissa Beatle, managing director in our office, and also led the audit effort. I'm going to be very brief in my remarks because we did meet with the audit committee this morning. That meeting included a detailed review of the audit process and audit findings, and several of the trustees, although not on the committee, attended that meeting.

Um, you want to Also recognize that we held an executive session during the audit committee, which is a best practice in the auditing process to ensure that there's an opportunity for candid conversation, both between trustees and ourselves and in the other direction. I'll just maybe cover just one slide here on this presentation, which is the overview slide. We have completed our audit process with no outstanding matters. We're going to issue the report upon acceptance by the board. Um, that report will be an unmodified opinion on the financial statements, which is also referred to as unqualified or clean opinion, um, that says that we believe that the financial statements are presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.

We did have one uncorrected, um, misstatement, which was expected and related just to the lag in, uh, timing of receiving some of the financial information from alternative investments. We evaluated that timing lag and don't believe that it's material to the financial statements, either as a point in time or during the, during the year period. That really summarizes the results. I do want to recognize the Permanent Fund Corporation staff for their level of effort, diligence, and cooperation in the audit process. It's a comprehensive comprehensive audit and definitely requires effort on their part.

I've observed that they have a level of continuous improvement mindset, both in their internal processes as well as in working with us, and, and we share the same in the audit process. So we work very hard together to make the audit process as streamlined as it can be and connect throughout the year and have All of that has led us to the conclusion today. So make sure we recognize the staff for their time. Absolutely. Thank you for that.

Mm-hmm. Glad to answer any questions. Given we went through this in detail, and I believe all of the trustees were actually on for majority of the presentation this morning, 3 in the room and 3 online. Any, any questions, further questions from Trustees? Hearing none, I'd entertain a motion to accept the report of the annual audit.

I move to accept the report of the annual audit. I'll second. Thank you. We have a first and a second. Motion and a second.

Is there any discussion on the motion on the floor?

Hearing none, Jennifer, if you could please do a roll call. Trustee Schutt? Yes. Trustee Samuels? Yes.

Trustee Anderson? Yes. Trustee Earls? Yes. Chair Bruni?

Yes. Trustee Binkley? Yes. Motion carries. Excellent.

Thank you very much. Thanks again, Beth, Melissa, and all the KPMG team. Val, thank you to all of your team. Excellent job to get a clean audit is phenomenal. So kudos.

Well, indeed, but it's, it's, uh, it's still a lot of work to get to that point. So thank you and, uh, great job. And I will just point out to the colleague to my left that we are, uh, 30 minutes ahead of schedule. So, uh, uh, we will, uh, bring our, our newest member, uh, of staff up to the hot seat. Welcome aboard, Scott, and Kelly as well.

Just for the public's knowledge, we had a couple of sessions with some of the trustees to go through the budget and ask questions before the formal presentation today.

A little background, we obviously will be transitioning governors this December.

The new governor will be responsible for submitting the budget of the State of Alaska by December 15th. There has been direction given from the current governor to a effectively a flat budget with any kind of changes being put on a separate list. We are proceeding, given the importance of this organization, with doing our regular budget, and we will be, you know, approving that budget through this process, and then whatever needs to be done for meeting the requirements in the transition will be done and lined out appropriately. But it's our fiduciary responsibility to identify additional funding requirements, et cetera, different than other state agencies. So that's the direction that I've given in this approach.

And so with that as a foundation, I'll just turn it over to you, Scott. Thank you. Excuse me. Okay. Let me click it.

Sorry. Now try it. All right.

So I'd like to start off by first saying thank you to Devin and Val and Kelly for all the great work that they did before I was able to get onboarded. There was a ton of stuff that needed to get done. But when I showed up, the files, everything that I needed to quickly kind of come on and get up to speed was there and waiting. And that was a very nice thing to have.

So for FY28, we are continuing the process that I believe was started last year. Um, and asking for your full approval of this, of the budget at this meeting, um, rather than at the annual meeting. And also consistent with last year, we are proposing a single appropriation with a 3 allocation budget structure. Um, for background, the process of building this budget began in July when each of our roughly 15 budget managers were asked to forecast their needs for the year. And build a budget starting from zero to support those needs.

Individual meetings were then held with the managers to review and refine those requests, and the budget that came out of it is what you have in front of you here today. We believe this budget fulfills the board's fiduciary obligation by giving staff what they need to carry out APFC's mission to manage and invest the assets of the permanent fund and other funds designated by law, as well as the corporation's vision to deliver outstanding returns for the benefit of all current and future generations of Alaskans. So in support of that mission, as I'll go into later in this proposed budget presentation, includes a fully funded incentive compensation program as well as some authorization for targeted salary adjustments, including some estimated cost of living adjustments would be— which would be subject to change pending potential automatic adjustments under SB 259.

Before I get into the meat, the meat of this, the last thing I will mention is that the department, as requested by the Department of Revenue, a draft of this budget was sent to Commissioner Earls on August 14th. And if the board prescribes any changes to the budget here today, staff will communicate those to OMB and Department of Revenue.

So overall, the proposed budget has a 2.5% or $5.3 million increment over the approved FY27 budget. Uh, I'll start today by going through the operations allocation and then through the other two allocations.

Uh, beginning with personal services, we have a $1.1 million, uh, or a 4.3% overall increase that includes base salaries, benefits, incentive compensation, and board honorarium. Within base salaries, we've budgeted for a 5% increase that includes both cost of living and merit increases for staff, as well as the removal of one business analyst position. And as I mentioned in the introduction, included here is the cost of living adjustment that would be subject to change under SB 259. Additionally, we've budgeted for an increment of $195,000 for the incentive compensation program to fund the full potential payout under that program. But as a reminder, any incentive compensation that isn't earned lapses, and it would not be spent or the budget authority transferred anywhere else for any other purpose.

I'm sorry, I— $195,000 increase. Increment, yes. Okay. So fully funding—. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, that's what I thought. But I thought I heard you say that the amount was $195,000, and it's a lot more than that. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. The last item in this component is the board's honorarium, for which we've included a $2,000 increase to provide some wiggle room for the board in the event that it feels the need to hold another one day's worth of meetings.

The APFC has 61 full-time positions. There are 4 vacancies, 3 in investments and 1 in operations. And just as a note, this does not— this count here does not include the business analyst position that I mentioned we are proposing to give up.

The budget for travel Uh, overall is flat from FY27. Uh, within that total, there is an increment of $28,000 that's been added to trustee travel with an offsetting decrement of $28,000 staff travel. This reallocation restores cuts that were made by the legislature to our FY27 budget request to trustee travel and aligns the budget with what we expect actuals to be.

This is the biggest portion of this area. So contractual services, we are requesting a $789,000 or 23% increase over FY27. The bulk of this increase is in information technology, which has an $803,000 increment over the prior year, which is just under a 50% increase. And so a few of the items I'd like to talk about and call out in here, we have some one-time costs. We have a cybersecurity audit, which is scheduled by the board every other year that's included.

We have replacement of our 33-year-old data center cooling system, which is a one-time cost included here, as well as one-time cost for AI consulting. And this is a part of our, current in-flight AI initiative here with another part of it later on in this presentation. And this initiative is supplanting our Data Vault initiative, which you will also see later on in this, in this presentation coming out of the totals.

In addition to these one-time costs, we have some ongoing costs for Cisco Cybersecurity Ecosystem. And for things like VMware, which is our virtualization software, VMware has recently substantially increased their charges. So we, we use them to virtualize basically everything around here from computers to servers, and we pay them per core. The cost to virtualize per core has gone up from $109 a core to $250 almost. And staff is working on a plan to mitigate these costs further out in the future, but that is a— it is a plan that we are working on.

One other item I would note here is an increment of $50,000, which we have built in for board software to help out with meetings.

Within this component, we've also budgeted decrements to audit, legal, and consulting, as well as HR and recruitment to align with actuals that we've experienced.

And decrement to public communications to recognize efficiencies that we've gained in that area. We budgeted increases to board support meetings to cover catering costs, training and conferences for new staff and certifications, and office support. While it does have an increment on here, it is really just a change in ledger lines where those charges are being recorded. So not new money, um, just money from elsewhere in the budget.

Commodities and equipment is the next component. Um, we have a decrement year over year of $103,000 or 27%. Um, within here, information technology has been brought down by $170,000 to align more with historical norms. And this is different from and doesn't perfectly offset the one-time increase of $195,000 in the prior year for a couple of reasons. Um, first, uh, the increase in RAM and GPUs in the one-off replacements that we do have to do, um, that is something that needs to be recognized and we need to build in something, uh, budget components to be able to cover that.

Um, and also, um, The, the other component is funding decrement that was given to us by the legislature of 50% a couple of years ago. Office support is up by about $66,000 here, and this is to fund increases related to AI subscription services such as Microsoft's Copilot and Anthropic's Claude.

Moving on to this next allocation for facilities. Um, this is where our rent for our Juneau and Anchorage offices comes from. In this line, we restored the FY27 Anchorage office funding and budgeted for 6% increases in our rent payments, both here in, in Juneau and up in Anchorage. And lastly, we've included some additional funds to, if we need, increase our Anchorage footprint. Currently, we do have one space open in Anchorage, but this gives us the flexibility we would need if we needed to move quickly to add more, if we got that interest from staff.

The last allocation is investment management.

Within investment management, we have investment systems and due diligence. Here we're budgeting for a slight decrement in FY28. Within investment systems, we've removed funds for the planned Data Vault project, which I mentioned earlier, and had been budgeted at $700,000. And we have increased the custody line by $435,000 to account for foreign tax advisor fees. The last component of this is an increment of $3.7 million for alternative markets manager fees.

Public equity fees and real estate fees are being held flat to the prior year.

With that, happy to take any questions that the board may have. So just for the public's confidence, the lack of questions here today does not mean that we have not fully vetted this budget. We had several meetings where we asked all sorts of questions that lasted several hours, and I know adjustments were made. So before I open it up for trustees' questions, You indicated that on August 14th, this budget was transmitted to Commissioner Earls and DOR. Were any changes made from the— I know there were some changes that were made from input from trustees during our side conversations or the little presentations you gave to us.

Were any changes made from August 14th until today, September 2nd, that would require resubmission to Commissioner Earls? So far, no. So far, no. Okay. Okay, with that, I'll open it up for questions from trustees.

We'll start online. Trustee Samuels, any questions? No, sir. Thank you very much.

Trustee Binkley. Yeah, Mr. Chairman, no, but just to echo, echo your comments about the work sessions, those were tremendously helpful. To me, I know, and when we can sit down and work closely to try and better understand and, and vet the budgets, that's extremely helpful. So I appreciate you making that available to the public to let them know that we have worked extensively on this budget, even though there might be— might not be a lot of discussion today. Thank you.

Thanks, Trustee Pinkley. Vice Chair Shutte.

No substantive questions or comments from me. Thank you.

Trustee Anderson. No, I mean, it's a very modest increase in a budget considering the investment management piece of it, and I think it's been very well thought out. I appreciate the going through and doing the decrements and the increments and really making sure that it's an accurate budget for what's the reality of the situation at Permanent Fund Corp today. So no, no, no questions today. Thank you, Trustee Anderson.

And this budget actually resides within Trustee Earls, so that's why I'm leaving the last word before I talk to you. Any thoughts or concerns? No, I think that I got most of my questions out, or all my questions out, when we met earlier, or later in August, earlier before this meeting. I do have one question, and I know I had asked it before on the information technology. Were some of those items one-time items, or are they ongoing?

So yeah, so the, um, we're gonna, if we're headed back up to the contractual services area. Yeah. So, uh, AI, um, one-time costs include the AI consultant, um, the cybersecurity audit, and the data center cooling systems replacement. Ongoing costs are the Cisco cybersecurity ecosystem, um, that is a fairly large cost. It is slightly offset by a decrement that we're taking, um, because we're no longer using Palo Alto.

Um, and then the other piece, uh, of this, um, is the VMware, uh, that I was talking about. And that would be ongoing. That would be ongoing until we can find a solution. Great, thank you. Thank you, Trustee Earls.

Great job. Welcome aboard again to the staff, and Kelly, thank you for all of your hard work and dealing with our questions. A couple of things that I want to just bring out that, that were mentioned during our executive session, and I think it's important for the public to hear. First is the, the importance of, as we're talking about succession planning and making sure we have sufficient staffing, I let Devin and his team know that we are very much supportive of adding positions if necessary as we're looking at maintaining institutional knowledge and developing redundancies and cross-training folks if we need them. Obviously, the fact that we have 65 employees and that's it, and we're generating 65%, 66% of the state's revenue is phenomenal.

And if we need additional people we should not hesitate to ask for them. You've also heard me say in the past— you haven't, but others— that if we're going to have positions that are vacant, let's get rid of them. So it's great to see that only 4 are currently vacant and that we're advertising for them. But it is incredibly important, especially in light of what we heard earlier today, sadly, that, that we are building that bench and And from an IT perspective, if, if we need redundancies or additional people to ensure we're protecting our data and having those controls in place, I'm supportive of future amendments, uh, if necessary. The second thing I wanted to put on the record was, um, uh, the trustees are formally asking Devin and his team to put together an AI policy that will show the trustees' support for AI being implemented, but also the necessity for ensuring our data is protected and kept confidential.

And if this, I think this official policy needs to be on the books as we propose to the budget increment that we put forward for adding AI. And so my hope would be at the December meeting, Devin, we could have that for consideration. If you wanted to bring it to the meeting in Nome, I just don't want to stress your team. It's, it's important that we have something official on the record recognizing this is a constantly evolving field, but that we— this is something we want to make sure that, again, we are highly supportive of the use of AI, but also incredibly important that we both protect the confidentiality and of our, of our data and ensure it's used appropriately. So I talked to Devin at the break about this, and any, any thoughts or questions on that, Devin?

I think it makes sense that we would bring this to the board in December. That, I mean, we just had a big meeting yesterday with the vendor and a lot of staff related to AI use and risks and concerns and potential solutions. And there are a number of potential solution paths for implementation of AI at APFC. One of the challenges that we gave to the consultant was if they had a client similar to us elsewhere, and they couldn't produce one. I mean, and this is a big vendor, it's not us.

So, so it— we're, we are not behind was the message we got from the vendor. We're maybe closer to the front. So we want to make sure we're doing it right, and it is evolving quickly enough that even our discussions about concerns about AI have— I don't know, they haven't been 180, but they've— there's been significant deviation to direction based on our gaining experience and understanding of the opportunity and risks associated with the various tools and what's available out there. And So I think that by December we should be well prepared for a presentation to the board on a path and a potential policy statement for the board to consider on moving forward with the use of AI here at the corporation. Thank you.

Any questions from trustees about that?

Two final points on the budget. Myself and a few trustees are going to be requesting to meet with the four remaining gubernatorial candidates to talk about our budget, as well as our constitutional amendment proposals and others, part of what we put together for the transition document, just to make sure that You know, when they come in, they're going to have a couple of days to put their budget forward and then their legislative proposals forward, and they're able to hit the ground running. So we will be extending opportunities to meet with, with us as part of that engagement process during, during the election time. And I, for one, as the person who asked for us to consider an application that could modernize the delivery of packets to board members for $50,000. Before we spend that money, I commit to being the guinea pig.

For $50,000, I'd want a back rub every time. So that seems extremely expensive for 6 of us, especially And I want to take work away from Jennifer. I don't, but I don't know if it's worth $50,000, you know, $10,000 or $9,000 board member for, for that. But I'd like to look at it before we make that commitment. And I'm willing to spend the money, but I want to make sure we're being smart, smart with it, not just buying a nice little shiny toy for the trustees.

If that's okay, Scott. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah, Trustee, what is this? Is it like a hologram?

Well, no, that's why I didn't realize. I hadn't heard it before until today that it was $50,000 added to the budget for something that would modernize the delivery of packets. I know a lot of the ANCs have. IPads that the packets are pushed and you can push, you know, turn a page and it's all there and it's magically downloaded to it. It's actually really cool what some of the ANC, Alaska Native Corporations, are doing.

I don't know if this is that software, but it's, you know, I heard— that's why I asked if there had been changes between what you provided on the 14th and— because I didn't know if that was recently added, but it's It's a lot of money and holograms or back rubs or whatever seems like we want to make sure we're not just buying a shiny toy. Is it to address confidentiality or is there something? It really is recognition of the clunkiness of paper packets and that the Valdez experience where paper packets arrived after people had already departed for their travel to Valdez highlighted that that delivery method is a little antiquated, and it would be— there's been resistance historically. Just older trustees tend to not embrace technology as quickly as you guys. I'll call you young trustees.

And, and so it was really, um, probably a back-of-the-envelope ballpark number for what would it take for technology, uh, to allow for a, um, delivery of, of board information in a more timely fashion through tech. So you would— we would be giving you technology, whether this— and if you can use your own state laptop, we'd have to run things to ground. What we'd be able to use equipment that you might already have. So $50,000 is a most likely not to exceed a point that won't be realized, but certainly we didn't want to find ourselves in a situation where we said, oh, it would have been perfect if we had the money available to utilize this option and we don't. So being a new thing, and one of the components of that would just be that there'd be a portal online that you would log into with the machine that you were provided by APFC, which was discussed in prior meeting that that's what some of the NCs do.

So, so it's an iPad. It would be the equivalent of an iPad, which is a couple grand for an iPad. So it— I don't know what the portal costs. I don't know what it— that's going to take to set up and what that costs. I don't—.

And I don't remember how the $50,000 were generated. I'll defer to Scott, or Scott that's right behind him, if there were a desire to drill down to that. I think $50,000, I think, is what we were looking at. The, the max potential could be, but it wasn't something that we were shooting for trying to spend. Um, it was just giving us, uh, enough wiggle room to do the diligence, um, and find something that is appropriate and satisfies the needs for the board members.

So it's a paper replacement. It's not like it's still be a PDF or something. You're not like— it's not like an AI-driven new technology where we can talk to it and they could—. It could conceivably—. I mean, I could do that now with this one, to be honest.

It could conceivably be integrated with something that allowed for more searchability and cross-referencing and more user-friendly from a board or trustee perspective. But again, we are early days, and so it was an idea that we discussed in the development of the budget. Seemed like an opportunity to move forward, and $50,000 was thrown on the table as a not-to-exceed cost that might be incurred without knowledge of what it really will cost. And so if, I mean, if you think it's too much, we could diminish that amount, or we can be— my perspective with APFC's budget, which is not in alignment with a lot of state budgeting, is that give us authority to do the job the right way, and we will adhere to a practice of not overspending. We don't need to spend every nickel to justify our budget next year.

We don't want to have to be in that situation. We want to have the flexibility so that we can respond and we can provide what's required, but not abuse any authority that we might be provided. So that's how the $50,000 arose, and we're supportive of having that level of flexibility and, and would ask for the indulgence of the trustees to, to provide that authority to this— us at this level, and that we would, um, be committed to providing the lowest cost solution that has the most value for the trustees.

Samson. Okay, so I want to— so the, the web, I really appreciate the website. I want to say that because even with the revamps and everything, it's very quick today. You can find the agenda, you can find the meeting packets very quickly. It's very user-friendly and accessible.

So I just want to give a big shout out to whoever does the website. I think that one's been super. If there was something where we spent some money, the one thing I'd be careful of is technology changes so fast. So if we buy a device and then it's not good in 6 months or whatever, you know, I just I just don't think that's a good use of money. But to have a place for trustees, and it can still be a public site, I think, where the charters are available, the statute, you know, information, all the things, the tools that a trustee could use.

I think that's, and the orientation packages, all that stuff, that would be super in one place and just have, maybe put some time into a website where you can access the information. I don't, yeah. From my perspective, and yeah, I'm not a paper person, but Having the ability to download things quickly and then work on my platforms is super because the platforms keep changing. Yep, I agree. That's it.

Thank you. And I, I will say one of my goals is I'm, I'm one of those paper guys, but I want to eliminate work for Jennifer, uh, because I was one of the ones that received the packet when I got home from Belmont please. So that, that did me no good, and I figured at that point I need to grow up and learn how to— I mean, I know how to use technology, but it's— the options will always be there for printing. But I think I love your concept, Trustee Anderson, about a repository for trustees to go and look at all the historic packets, all the historic The trustee papers are great. Exactly.

And all at like a one-stop shop for trustees.

So, and again, fully, I think we have a demonstrated history because when we don't spend money, it goes back to us. So we don't spend frivolously, but we want to make sure when we do something, we do it right. And so I'm supportive of the number. I'm not supportive of lowering it, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm willing to be a guinea pig as you're looking at different items to show, to see what might work for ultimate implementation. And then also recognizing we potentially could have 2 new trustees come the new administration, so.

Final questions about the budget? I just— on that point, Mr. Chairman, this is John. Please don't consider giving me another device in whatever you do. Maybe for other people, but I've got enough devices. So whatever it is, make it work with my existing devices.

I like the hologram device. I think that'd be a great one.

Thank you, Trustee Binkley. Other questions? Final questions? Hearing none, I'd entertain a motion in support of the FY '28 budget. So moved.

I'll second. Motion by Trustee Binkley, seconded by Trustee Anderson. Any further discussion?

Hearing none, Jennifer, could we please get a roll call vote? Trustee Earls? Yes. Trustee Samuels? Yes.

Trustee Anderson? Yes. Trustee Shutte? Yes. Chair Bruni?

Yes. Trustee Binkley? Yes. Motion carries. It's unanimous.

Thank you very much. And again, Scott Kelly and all the rest of the team, thank you for all of your efforts. To the legislature, to the future governor. We look forward to working with you and having a collaborative relationship going forward to help this organization in its efforts to develop Alaska's asset.

Any final comments from either of you? Cool, cool. Okay, well, we have a break on the agenda next, but I don't know if that's necessary. So I will once again open it up for public comment if there's thoughts anyone online has about action we've just taken or other thoughts. We'd welcome that.

You can raise your hand or press star 6. Star 5. Star 5. In the meantime, while we're waiting for anyone online, anyone in the room wants to— Jennifer, anyone online? I don't see anything.

We'll close public comment. I will turn it over to trustees for trustee comments, and we'll start with Trustee Samuels.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being— well, well-run meeting. And the— from the earlier, I still want to emphasize how much I appreciated that cybersecurity briefing and look forward to seeing you all in Nome.

Thank you, Trustee Samuels. Trustee Binkley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well-run meeting as usual by yourself and also the committees by Commissioner Anderson. Thanks to Devin and all the staff, so professionally prepared and well-executed, the meetings as well as all of the day-to-day work. Much appreciated. And to echo Trustee Samuel's comments about cybersecurity, very informative.

The criticality of it is, is so important to us and really enlightening to, to hear that. So thanks to all, and we'll see everybody in Nome.

Thank you.

Trustee Earls. I just echo what everyone else says. Thank you to your staff, Devin, and welcome Scott to PPFC. Farewell and adieu from the OR.

Thank you, Trustee Earls. Trustee Anderson. Well, first I want to compliment the chair on a very efficient use of time.

Um, no, I think— yeah, no, I appreciate the information today. All good. Um, excited for Nome. There's no place like Nome, all of that. Um, and hopefully we get a chance when we go to visit the port project.

That's a very significant infrastructure project in our state, so that would be super because they're very active right now on that. Um, so yeah, so yeah, that's really all I had. I appreciate it. And yeah, welcome. Thank you, Trustee Anderson.

Vice Chair Shutt.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Appreciate the normal preparation and the diligence going into the budget preparation that we just approved, and I'll see you all in Nome a little bit later this month.

Thank you. To those of you out hunting, best of luck. Devin, any last comments from you or Marcus or the team? I think the only comment I would make is appreciate the trustees' diligence and the support of staff in both the presentations provided today but as well in the budget process that people— our staff has really put effort in. And it's appreciated that then the board's supportive of that effort, that, that people made recognition of where they could reduce budget and where they might need resources, and then that they're not being second-guessed on those, um, uh, deliverables that, that they believe they're, uh, that they require to conduct their job.

So that's really appreciated. And I guess if somebody was listening, they might be critical that you weren't more questioning of staff's recommendations, but I think it's a validation of the process we went through more than anything. Thank you, Devin. I think it goes without saying, thank you to you, to all of your team, countless people made this meeting and the day-to-day operations of the organization fantastic.

Can't help but give another shout out to Jackie and thank you for your service for a decade to the organization. I want to reiterate to all the staff, we— you are our best asset. You are what help grow this phenomenal resource for the state, and we want to develop you and keep you as long as possible. So please, please know how much the board values you. To that end, I also want to thank both Chair Schutt and Chair Anderson for their excellent efforts on their committee meetings.

Those are both great, excellent committees, and a lot of work goes into preparation for that. I too am very excited for Nome. As they say, there's no place like Nome. And so I will look forward to seeing everyone there. With that, I will encourage a motion to adjourn.

Move to adjourn. Second. Any opposition? Hearing none, we are adjourned at 1:54.

What are they doing out there? Thank you.