Investment Consultant Services

The Vendor is required to provide investment consultant services for include:
1. Consulting services
• The plan design and operations, strategic goals, communication, and detailed investment education programs, industry best practices for both internal and plan service provider procedures, and education related to federal and state law and regulatory changes.
• The outset of its engagement, the investment consultant will review the assorted plan documents, adoption agreements, and investment policy statements and provide guidance as to any necessary revisions to such documents.
• Following that initial work, the investment consultant shall periodically work with the committee to review the plan documents in light of changes in governing law, industry best practices, and other developments affecting plan design and make recommendations for modifications to the plan documents;
• Industry and plan sponsor trends (public sector), new investment products, and developing industry best practices for both internal and external service provider functions;
• Plan design, services, and fee benchmarking;
• Investment strategies for structuring a retirement investment program suitable to the long-term needs and risk tolerances of each plan participant;
• Attend coordination meetings, review submittals, respond, and provide design clarifications; and
• Training for committee members on fiduciary duties, industry or regulatory developments, or other pertinent topics, on request of the committee, and on other matters as requested by the committee.
2. Contract administrative services
• Recordkeeping services;
• Enrollment and communication services;
• Participant education services; and
• The investment consultant will periodically review fee arrangements of plan service providers and assist the committee in identifying indirect compensation elements of plan service providers.
3. Investment policy and fund searches
• Assist the committee in the formulation of and ongoing review of policies and procedures pertaining to the plans’ investment options and their administration;
• Evaluate and make recommendations to the committee regarding the plans’ investment options and potential modifications to the plans’ investment structure or investment options;
• Subject to adoption by the committee, the investment consultant shall develop and periodically review and update the plans’ investment policy statements for selection of appropriate investment fund managers, mutual funds, or other suitable investments within the framework of the plans.
• Such a review would include the asset classes that may be offered through the plans, criteria for selection of individual investment options and monitoring their performance, and the procedures and standards for review and replacement of investment options;
• The investment consultant shall perform searches and recommend alternative investment options as needed per the plans’ investment policies or as requested by the committee; and
• Update the committee on developments in the financial services industry and financial market, and provide analysis and recommendations with respect to such developments.
4. Investment review services
• An economic overview and general market conditions for the reporting period;
• A comparison of each investment option’s performance to appropriate market indices and universes of similarly managed vehicles, consistent with the benchmarks for that asset class established by the investment policy statements;
• Verification of investment style consistency for each investment option, consistent with that asset class;
• A measurement of the risk characteristics of each investment option;
• Historical performance with a focus on consistency;
• Morningstar or equivalent rankings;
• Comments on manager tenure and on the utilization of funds among participants;
• A review of expenses and returns of each fund option;
• An analysis of the extent to which investment policies have been carried out and how they have affected actual fund performance;
• Recommendations for alternatives to address any of the above; and
• A summary of findings and recommendations based on the strengths and weaknesses of individual funds.