- LATEST ON THE PENSION
- DECENTRALIZATION
- COMMENTS on 802 CLEAN SWEEP
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- LATEST ON THE PENSION
MPS 2019 Pension Update: Where We’re Headed and What You Can Do
The AFM-EPF is most likely a few months away
from entering critical and declining status.[1]The Trustees’ own projections
say this. If and when this is announced – probably in April or May of this year
— the Trustees then have the ability, if they so choose, to apply to the US
Treasury for permission to cut our pension benefits.
It is worth remembering that of the 1400 multiemployer plans in this country,
only 25 have applied to have their benefits cut: about 1.7%. The AFM-EPF may
soon join that 1.7%. According to a recent study by Milliman, the funded
percentage of all multiemployer plans stands at 83%. Ours is at 63% and
dropping as we approach the end of the fiscal year, March 31, 2019.
The Butch Lewis Act has unfortunately collapsed for now. Two bills have
been introduced in the House to bring it back to life. MPS will stay
engaged in Washington to get the help we need. But as long as the
Republicans control the Senate, the path forward in Washington remains
murky.[2]
Our main task now is to push our Trustees to do the right thing. There are
still things they can do to improve the situation.
Improve Investment Returns:
The AFM-EPF’s investment performance this
fiscal year is 2.2% (through 9/30/18), while the median performance in our
peer group is 3.8%. The new investment manager, Cambridge Associates, hired in
October 2017, has added negative value in this fiscal year. You read that
right: they have added negative value.[3] According to the Trustees’ own
actuary, Milliman, “the primary driver of multiemployer health continues to be
asset performance.” It is exactly in this area that our Trustees continue to
fail us.
Increase Employer Contributions:
A significant reason for the crisis at AFM-EPF
is the low level of employer contributions to the pension fund. According to
recent Congressional testimony before the Joint Select Committee in Congress,
aggregate contributions to multiemployer pension plans for 2009 to 2014
increased by 6.9% per year. Compare that to what our trustees project as the
growth rate in employer contributions over the next 20 years: 2.5%. This is
soon to be raised to 3%, but that is still a far cry from what is necessary.
This plan is not just a little behind in employer contributions but vastly
underperforming the industry standard of 6.9%. The Trustees’ own documents show
how increasing the level of employer contributions can postpone our pension
cuts.
Control Expenses:
It is unacceptable that as the AFM-EPF heads into critical and declining
status, there have still been no expense cuts. The Executive Director still makes
over $425,000 per year, and there are still about 20 people on staff who earn
six-figure salaries. There are two outside investment managers. There are two
law firms. And there is a Washington DC polling firm on retainer.
Appoint Qualified Trustees:
MPS has argued that we have an entrenched, unaccountable and unqualified Board,
and if this is permitted to continue, so will the mismanagement of our pension
plan. To avoid this scenario, MPS proposed replacing 5 of the 8 Union
Trustees with investment, pension, and actuarial experts. We believe
these simple steps that would make this board of Trustees more capable, more
dynamic and more accountable.
That’s what the Trustees can and should do. Here’s what AFM musicians across
the country can do.
Raise Your Voices:
The next AFM convention is coming up quickly in June. Your local
presidents will be attending and their attitudes and agenda should be shaped by
you, the membership. Now is the time to let your local presidents and
elected officials know that they must help influence our lead Trustee Ray Hair
to improve investment returns, increase employer contributions, control
expenses and appoint qualified trustees as detailed above.
Get Active:
If your local union leadership is not representing your wishes as members, it
may be time for a change. Last month, the Musicians for Change party of Local
802 in New York City (led by several MPS organizers) swept the elections and
thus ousting an entrenched administration that refused to address the pension crisis
in a strategic way. (Read about it here in the New York Times). Musicians for Change has
shown that grassroots activism works. It can work at your local too by voicing
your concerns, demanding accountability, and by making leadership changes where
necessary.
We are entering uncharted territory for this pension plan, for the AFM and
personally for each of us. This is not the time to be passive. The Trustees are
about to make decisions that will alter the lives of thousands of AFM musicians
across the country. It is time to let the Trustees know
that musicians are organized and speaking with one voice. We
are demanding accountable leadership and a cohesive strategy to address
the issues facing the pension fund. Since this crisis began in December of
2016, we have yet to see either of those things.
[1]“Projections show critical and a declining status for April 1, 2019 (does not reflect market downturn through October).” November 8, 2018 Actuarial Valuation, page 17.
[2]We continue to be amazed that anyone calls Butch Lewis a bailout. Of course, Butch Lewis is not a bailout. It’s a loan guarantee program. There are currently over 100 federal loan and loan guarantee programs, assisting small businesses, homebuyers, veterans, students, farmers, disaster recovery, export-import transactions, and infrastructure projects. There is currently $4.34 trillion of federal loans outstanding under these programs. No one calls these federal loan programs bailouts. No one should call Butch Lewis a bailout either. But those arguments are on hold for now.
[3]September 30, 2018 Investment Report to AFM-EPF, Cambridge Associates.
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- ANOTHER INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT: DECENTRALIZATION CONTINUES
Even BYUtv is looking at filming elsewhere, as Utah’s $8M budget for film incentives can’t keep up with demand
By Scott D. Pierce
Disney wants to produce more TV series and movies in Utah — but it’s looking elsewhere. Oscar nominee Taylor Sheridan would like to film his upcoming movie in Utah — but production will take place in New Mexico. BYUtv is exploring options for producing TV series in Georgia or Canada.
Why? Because Utah’s tax incentive program for film and television is limited to $8.29 million a year. And compared with the demand — and the additional millions some other states provide — that’s not much to offer an industry that considers incentives a key part of the bottom line.
Mary Ann Hughes, Disney’s vice president of film and television production planning, told a recent meeting of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, “You will not find the productions going anywhere without incentives. It’s become an integral part of our planning.”
Disney is budgeted to get Utah incentives estimated at $3.7 million for its new series “High School Musical: The Musical.” But if a pilot that Disney shot in Utah last year, “The A Girl,” gets picked up as a series, the company says it will film elsewhere, because the likelihood of Utah having several million dollars more in incentive money available is slim, due to the limited budget and other projects (including Disney’s).
“Tax credits are a big driver of our decision-making,” said Susette Hsiung, executive vice president of Disney Channels Worldwide.
BYUtv filmed Season 1 of its upcoming show “Dwight in Shining Armor” in West Valley City, but it’s reportedly considering moving to Georgia or Canada. BYUtv managing director Michael Dunn didn’t want to comment directly on “Dwight” and said Utah “remains at the top of our list of production options.”
But he added that BYUtv “must consider other locations outside of Utah, particularly because of the lucrative tax incentives offered. These additional incentives dramatically offset our limited budgets,” he said, and they “are critical for the long-term viability of a series.”
Utah “has attracted more business than the incentive will support at this point. So BYUtv starts looking at going to Canada,” said Matias Alvarez, one of the producers of “Dwight.” “It’s just crazy.”
The Motion Picture Association of Utah — where Alvarez is a board member — will lobby the upcoming Utah Legislature and Gov. Gary Herbert to provide more money for incentives. Sheridan and actor/director/producer Amy Redford said they’d do whatever they can to help make that happen.
“Anything I could do that could possibly help the Legislature understand this, I’m eager to do,” Sheridan said.
Getting it made in Utah
Utah’s incentive program is “conservative,” according to Virginia Pearce, director of the Utah Film Commission. It rebates up to 25 percent of the cost of goods and services that are bought in the state, and of the salaries of Utahns on the crew.
Producers submit an estimate of how much they plan to spend in the state and — if approved — incentive money is budgeted by the Utah Film Commission. If the project doesn’t go into production, it doesn’t get anything. If it spends less than expected, it gets less — and that’s determined by a postproduction audit.
The film commission has to budget carefully because “we have run out the last couple of years,” Pearce said. “We’re kind of a victim of our own success.”
Disney’s Hughes pointed out that, in 2018, Season 3 of “Andi Mack” received a $4.8 million rebate, and “The A Girl” pilot got $400,000. Those payments, combined with its estimated 2019 rebate for “High School Musical: The Musical,” are $610,000 more than the annual budget of Utah’s incentives (albeit spread over two years).
“And this is just the Disney Channel,” Hughes said. “It causes us to have some tough conversations” about taking productions elsewhere.
One common pushback on increasing incentives is “why would we give Hollywood people money?” Alvarez said. He finds that frustrating.
Utah’s incentives support the hiring of Utahns, Alvarez points out — not “Tom Cruise coming here and taking millions of dollars out of the state.”
Studios have to pay stars big bucks regardless of where films are produced, Redford said.
“The six people that make a lot of money on a film are going to make that money no matter where you go,” she said. “Their deals are not contingent on the incentives.”
The employment contracts of the crew, however, are.
The incentives are “not giving money to millionaires,” said Sheridan, the creator/writer/producer/director of the made-in-Utah TV series “Yellowstone.” “It’s giving money to construction workers and drivers and catering companies and electricians.”
Sheridan employs up to 110 construction workers, 45 electricians and 40 drivers at a time on “Yellowstone,” which has been approved for more than $7 million in incentives in each of its first two seasons. Both that show and “Andi Mack” are receiving deferred payments, which allow the film commission to pay out incentives of more than $2 million over three years. But that still comes out of the $8.29 million budgeted annually.
And that’s one of the reasons Sheridan said he can’t afford to make his upcoming film (which he’s keeping under wraps) here — incentives just aren’t available for a movie with a budget “in the $50 million range. That’s a lot of money to spend in a state,” he said.
Even if only half that budget was spent in Utah, a 25 percent rebate would amount to $6.25 million — 75 percent of Utah’s annual incentives.
‘It really is about the economy of Utah’
In Utah, innumerable businesses — from the arena that’s home to the Utah Jazz to the Walmart down the street — receive some kind of tax break. Offering the same benefit to film and television productions is an investment, Redford said.
“It’s not just about Hollywood saving money,” she said. “It’s really about supporting and nourishing an industry that could really give Hollywood a run for its money. It really is about the economy of Utah.”
According to Pearce, a recent study indicated that for every dollar spent on film incentives, $7 is added to Utah’s GDP, or gross domestic product, the value of goods and services produced within the state.
The increase is generated not just by what each production spends in the state — with at least 75 percent of its budget not rebated — but by “the crew member who gets paid, who takes his wife out to dinner, who buys a new car, who is able to live and work here instead of living and working in L.A.,” Pearce said.
“Yellowstone” “employs hundreds of people, and the vast majority of them are local,” Sheridan said. “And the ones who are coming in, they’re renting properties, they’re standing in line at the grocery store. They’re staying here. They’re moving in.
“It’s just a money dump,” he said with a laugh. “We show up and spend an extreme amount of money, employ a workforce and then leave. And showcase the state.”
Movies and TV shows filmed in Utah are sort of accidental advertisements. Tourists are still visiting East High more than a decade after the third and final “High School Musical” movie was released.
“We’ve done some studies, and 30 percent of tourists that come to the state said that some kind of television show or movie influenced their decision,” Pearce said.
Redford plans to shoot the film “Cowboys and Indians” — which she called “sort of a cultural collision between Hindus from Queens and ranchers from the southern part of Utah” — in the state this spring.
It will be, she said, “a love letter to all that Utah has to offer — a big advertisement to come and spend your vacations in southern Utah and enjoy all of the riches.”
But she added: “If I can’t say to the investors, ‘OK, I get to save that 30 percent on your money with the incentives,’ then they’ll say, ‘Then we’re going to go to New Mexico.’ And I can’t … totally argue with that.”
She said she’s “sweating a bit” because she fears “if a couple of Disney films come in, then that knocks all of the independent filmmakers out. It’s like, don’t tell anybody how wonderful Utah is to shoot because they’re going to suck up all the [incentive]
A look at the competition
There’s a reason that all the Marvel superhero movies, all the “Hunger Games” movies and a slew of TV series — including “The Walking Dead,” “MacGyver,” “Dynasty,” “Stranger Things” and, yes, “Atlanta” — film in Georgia.
There’s no cap on Georgia’s incentives, which provide up to a 30 percent rebate and apply to the salaries of both Georgians and non-Georgians. In the 2017-18 fiscal year, that state paid $800 million in incentives to 455 productions, which spent $2.7 billion in the state. The governor’s office estimated a total economic impact of $9.5 billion.
“Georgia’s rebate — it’s completely changed the movie business,” Sheridan.
Georgia easily outspent New York ($420 million) and California ($320 million) and New Mexico ($50 million). At the other end of the spectrum, Michigan eliminated its incentives in 2015, and production there has virtually ceased.
But Utah’s conservative approach looks good compared with what’s happened in New Mexico.
That state grants incentives of up to 30 percent, and there’s no cap on the amount productions can qualify for — but there is a $50 million cap on what the state can pay out each year. So New Mexico owed film and TV producers $180 million at the end of 2018, a figure that’s expected to more than triple in five years. (It may take Sheridan years to get the rebates on his upcoming film.)
Netflix has purchased a production studio in Albuquerque that is expected to bring 1,000 jobs — with help from $14.5 million in tax incentives from the city and the state.
Utah also competes with the U.K., Australia and New Zealand. Between the provinces and its federal government, Canada alone distributed more than half a billion dollars in incentives last year, a figure Pearce doesn’t ever see Utah approaching.
“I don’t think it makes sense for a state our size and the diverse economy that we’ve built up,” she said.
‘Make a real impact’
Still, expanding the film and TV business would only be good for Utah, said Sheridan, a Wyoming native who moved here ”to make a living in movies and not live in California.”
“Aside from clogging up some traffic in spots, I don’t know the negatives. And I think the positives greatly outweigh that,” Sheridan said. “All we do is run around and just leave a trail of money behind us.
Productions don’t leave “any residual trash or any toxic waste to clean up or anything,” Alvarez agreed. Another benefit to expanding incentives and the industry in Utah, he added, is keeping talented young Utahns home.
He’s carved out a 30-year career as a director/producer working mainly in Utah. But he’s the exception.
“I see tons of kids graduating from [Brigham Young University] and [Utah Valley University] and the [University of Utah] in media production who don’t have anywhere to go in Utah,” he said. “The best ones end up leaving and going to L.A. or Georgia. A lot of those kids have family here, they grew up here and they want to stay in Utah, but there are just no jobs here in that industry — or at least not enough jobs.”
Redford, the daughter of Robert Redford, moved back to Utah to establish a production company. She said there’s a huge amount of talent here, “and the kids that go to film school should be able to then put all of that talent back into the state. But a lot of them are getting to a point where they say, ‘You know what? There’s just not enough work. I’ve got to go.’”
Pearce said she’s proud of what the Utah Film Commission has been able to accomplish. Still, she told a meeting of GOED, “Our biggest concern right now is just the cap size.”
Sheridan would like to see rebates upped to 30 percent and the cap removed. And he’d like to see incentives applied to above-the-line costs (cast, stunt performers, producers) as well as below-the-line (goods and crew members).
“It would entice even more productions,” he said. “That’s what Georgia has done, and it’s how they’ve been so successful.”
Redford suggests greater incentives for shooting in “economically challenged areas” and a bump for using local music talent “so you can turn these really talented young musicians into composers and writers.” She also like the idea of an expat program, which would allow people born and raised in Utah to qualify for incentives even if they left the state to find work elsewhere.
Alvarez, too, wants Utah to make a bigger commitment.
“It’s like you’re dabbling in it and you have this small incentive, but it’s not enough to make a real impact,” he said. “I feel like it’s a half-measure that we’re stuck with right now.”
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COMMENTS ON LOCAL 802 CLEAN SWEEP
-A good start. I thought Tino was going to come after me when I asked whether we need some people on the Pension board who knew something about investments at the TMA meeting a few months ago. Of course the Broadway musicians have a huge interest in the plan, as they are putting a huge percentage of their checks into the plan (I think it is 18%).
Getting Tino’s predecessor and Vince Trombetta off the board wouldn’t hurt either.
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-A typical response by someone without knowledge of how the AFM-EPF and its board of trustees works. The board does not directly act in investing, hiring the same well-known actuaries and investment firms as do other funds. B’way musicians do not contribute out of their checks .Mgt. does the contributing based on an arbritator’s (Turkus) award from the ’60s giving musicians a percentage of ticket sales which has grown over the years as ticket prices have increased. Union-side trustees are appointed by the AFM president so no change there unless he wants it.
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-A series of mistakes by actuaries responding to the Fed’s “overfunding” rules leading to upping the multiplier to 4.65 to current and RETROACIVE accounts plus the ’08 financial meltdown led to the AFM-EPF’s current troubles. Nobody took the money. 802’s president is but one of 16 trustees, unable to cure the fund’s problems as the new know-nothing presiddent will find out. He will not even be appointed to the board.
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Getting a larger membership won’t fund
what’s already underfunded.
That money should already be there by the pension contributions so far.
Where did the money go? Did someone take it or was it invested poorly?
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Hello Friends
Where has the blog gone? I sure hope it has not gone away!
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EC: STILL HERE, JUST LESS FREQUENT!
Till Next Time….
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