H. B. 2953

(By Delegates Michael, Mezzatesta and Doyle)

[Amended and Again Passed March 16, 2003, as a Result of the Objections of the Governor; in Effect From Passage.]

AN ACT to amend and reenact section six, article thirty, chapter eighteen of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended; and to amend and reenact section thirteen, article eight, chapter thirty-six of said code, all relating to the administration of the prepaid tuition plan of the West Virginia college prepaid tuition and savings program; clarifying how moneys in the prepaid tuition trust fund are processed when the plan is terminated; closing the prepaid tuition plan to new contracts until further legislative authorization; continuing the plan as to current contract owners; providing for accrual of investment earnings; continuing annual evaluation of actuarial soundness of the prepaid tuition trust fund; requiring annual reports by the chairman of the prepaid tuition trust fund; establishing a mechanism to eliminate any actuarially projected unfunded liability in the prepaid tuition trust fund over a fixed period with funds from the unclaimed property trust fund in an amount not to exceed five hundred thousand dollars annually; creating the prepaid tuition trust escrow account and establishing purposes therefor; providing for the investment and use of the money in the prepaid tuition trust escrow account; providing for the transfer of funds in the unclaimed property trust fund to the prepaid tuition trust escrow account and to the general revenue fund; and providing for the disposition of funds in the prepaid tuition trust escrow account upon closure of the prepaid tuition trust fund.

 

We want PACT Participants to have the facts:

• We launched a website www.800alapact.com that will be updated each Friday by 2:00 p.m.

So proclaimed Kay Ivey to the media back on March 6, 2009.

Anyone checked out these updates recently?

This is the update for July 3, 2009:

No new information to report.

And this is the update for June 19, 2009:

No new information to report.

And the week in between? My, that was a very busy one. Somebody read a Birmingham News article and didn’t think that the figures were right. The June 26 weekly update makes a note of this.

And that’s it.

Three weeks’ work.

Oh yes, I know, the Board is waiting for the RSA’s final report. But surely what it will say, what the preliminary findings reported– the subject spurring the articles the Board found fault with the week of June 26– is that a lot of money needs to be found.

And that means a lot of work needs to be done.

Obviously.

I’ve been looking at what other states that offer prepaid college tuition programs are doing about meeting their obligations these days.

By 2004 it seemed obvious to some states that their program wasn’t going to be able to keep up with the inflation of their state universities’ tuition and that contingency plans to cope with shortfalls could well be needed in the future.

Some states began to take action. Imagine that! Acting before a crisis!

West Virginia  halted enrollments in 2003 and created a Prepaid Tuition Trust Escrow Account:

As of March 8, 2003, The West Virginia Prepaid Tuition Plan is closed to new enrollments. This does not affect those already enrolled in the plan.

The West Virginia Prepaid Tuition Plan was designed to provide West Virginia families with a convenient method of prepaying for future tuition costs by purchasing prepaid tuition units.

On March 8, 2003, the West Virginia Legislature enacted House Bill 2953, which continued the Prepaid Tuition Plan, but closed it to new enrollments. This action did not affect those already enrolled in the Plan.

HB2953 also created the Prepaid Tuition Trust Escrow Account “to guarantee payment of Prepaid Tuition Plan Contracts.” The Escrow Account will receive transfers of up to $1 million from the Unclaimed Property Trust Fund each year there is an actuarially determined unfunded liability in the Prepaid Tuition Trust Fund. If the Prepaid Tuition Trust Fund would ever need help, the funds in the Escrow Account will be available.

South Carolina suspended enrollments in the South Carolina Tuition Prepayment Program (SCTPP) last summer and passed legislation to try to hold down tuition costs for program participants. This was effective July 1, 2008:

Section 59-4-120

For the purpose of the Tuition Prepayment Program, the annual increase in tuition for an institution cannot exceed seven percent per year from Fiscal Year 2006-2007. To the extent that actual tuition for an institution exceeds an annual growth of seven percent per year, the institution shall grant a waiver of the difference to the designated beneficiary and must not pass along the difference to any student.

And Alabama, what did Alabama’s Prepaid Affordable College Tuition Board do?

• It resolved at its April 8, 2004 meeting to purchase liability coverage for board members not already covered by the state’s General Liability Trust Fund. See countrycat’s report on this move here.
• It continued to market PACTs aggressively until late March 2009.  (Remember Kay Ivey’s appeal, or maybe more like laying on a guilt trip, to the parents and grandparents of Covington County on January 13, 2009?)

In other words, there’s working the problem and there’s covering your ass.

Yes indeed, big do in the Archives Room of the Alabama State Capitol Building today as the PACT Board met, with special guest appearances by Callan Associates’ very own Annoesjka West, Actuary Robert Crompton, and State Treasury General Counsel J. Michael Manasco.

The board arranged itself and its guest speakers in a square with the guests, who did most of the talking, with their backs to the audience. Kay Ivey warned the 100 or so adults at the meeting’s start not to call out comments, eat, or drink, speaking longingly of the barrier that separates those in the peanut gallery from the important folks in the Legislature’s theatre.

Although I was in the front row, I found Investment Advisor West’s report nearly inaudible. As it was, it took her quite a while to get going since she felt the need to tell us all that the economy has been going through some tough times lately. I fully expected her at any moment to do the bit third graders do when they start a report: According to Webster’s Dictionary, the word deficit means…

As it turns out, the most revealing comment she made wasn’t verbal. When one of the Board members asked the actuary what the rate of inflation was for four-year universities in the state and the figure 13.6% was noted in reply, West’s jaw dropped as she turned to Treasury College Savings Program Director Brenda Emfinger at her side.

Wouldn’t you expect the investment advisor for the PACT program to be real, real, real familiar with the runaway inflation at the state’s universities?

Actuary Crompton’s report was easier to hear. He estimates that the PACT will run out of money in August 2014. While we were all supposed to be ever so pleased that summer and fall tuition for the remainder of 2009 will be paid, 2014 isn’t that far away. PACTs were still being sold this winter: these kids won’t be freshmen until 2027. And what no one brought up was this: if all the money is gone by 2014, then what money will be used to refund the purchase price (plus a stupendously generous 1% interest) to those left with the Confederate money equivalent of a contract who won’t be getting what they paid for?

As much as Calamity Kay and The Ten Grim Men might want this all to go away, it won’t: not just yet, anyway, because Senate Joint Resolution 150 calling on the Retirement Systems of Alabama to conduct a study of the program’s viability and make recommendations precludes dissolving the PACT right now.

The RSA will begin by conducting its own actuarial analysis of the situation. This led to a question by Board Member Willie Huff about why an actuary needs to be hired by the RSA when the Board employs an actuary. To the response  that RSA wants an independent actuary’s review, Huff remarked that he thought Crompton functioned as an independent source of information. Crompton replied that he “liked to think” of himself as independent.

Interesting phraseology, methinks.

And then Kay & the boys went off for a private executive session to discuss pending lawsuits filed by PACT purchasers.

[originally posted 5/20/09 at havealittletalk. Comments can be found at that site.]
]]> http://pactsandfictions.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/15-calamity-kay-and-the-ten-grim-men-live-in-montgomery/feed/ 0 havealittletalk http://pactsandfictions.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/14-my-wish-list/ http://pactsandfictions.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/14-my-wish-list/#comments Tue, 26 May 2009 15:08:34 +0000 havealittletalk http://pactsandfictions.wordpress.com/?p=37 ]]>  I’d like to know…

1. Who is responsible for the PACT’s promised guarantee? Over at Left in Alabama, gene’o has posted an outstanding compilation of the repeated use of “guarantee” in PACT advertising. Particularly revealing is the contrast that the marketing material itself makes between the PACT and a 529 investment plan, for example, this sentence gene’o quotes from a 2006 State Treasury press release: “I encourage all parents and grandparents to look into purchasing an Alabama PACT contract or investing in the Alabama Higher Education 529 Fund for a loved one.”

 It seems to me there are only two consequences that can follow from the repeated assertions that the PACT is a purchased contract.

1. The party responsible for the guarantee has to meet its contractual obligation.

2. The party responsible for marketing the program as guaranteed, when it in fact is not, has committed fraud.

I imagine someone somewhere is running the numbers to figure what will be cheaper for the Alabama Department of the Treasury: meeting its obligations or settling multiple civil suits, while in other quarters the politicians are trying to figure out whose heads would roll if criminal charges of fraud were filed.

2. Why was a bad situation allowed to get so much worse? Why was no action taken to stop the hemorrhaging between the end of the last fiscal year until well, when? I’ve seen various figures, all bad, all in the hundreds of millions, of the loss in assets between September 2008 and today. Has any action been taken, or is the PACT Board still allowing Callan Associates to do nothing to protect the fund’s remaining assets? Callan has advised “staying the course.” How does “staying the course” differ from doing nothing?

 3. Who served on the PACT Board during its 28-year history, who appointed them, and why.

 I’d like to see:

1. Documents detailing the “professional services” for which the PACT Board has paid  its advisors over the years and an accounting of the nature and extent of the activities for which they were paid.

2. Documents detailing the frequency and extent of the Board’s review of its advisors’ work.

3. An explanation of the reason for the changes in wording of the MasterPACTs over the years, in particular, the increase in number of disclosures.

 I’d like to hear:

1. Kay Ivey explain how she could encourage parents and grandparents  this January to purchase PACTs.

 Now IS the Time to Play the Blame Game

“This is not the time to play the blame game,” said the suits in Washington in the immediate aftermath of Katrina. Heck-of-a-job Brownie lost his, but not his boss. Or his. And New Orleans remains a wreck. The suits moved on; the blame game never played.

This will likely happen in this situation as well. Alabama’s politicians believe that they will not be held accountable for their actions. If they believe the public is too stupid to care what they do, it follows they will do as they please.

 Why do I think this? Consider the question of ethics reform in Alabama, and the PACT debacle is, among other things, an ethical crisis. Senators Roger Bedford and Zeb Little, Senate Majority Leader, told David Prather of the Huntsville Times not to expect any attention to be paid to reforming the rules governing lobbyists. The Legislature is too busy, they wouldn’t be able to please all the people, lobbyists are too important, and their constituents don’t particularly care. Prather writes, “Bedford and Little said they get lots of calls from people about losing their homes and their jobs but they never hear from any constituent about lobbyist feting.”

 Zeb Little’s name may ring a bell; he made the news this weekend following his arrest and jailing on suspicion of DUI, leaving the scene of an accident, failing to stop for troopers, as well as other offenses. You may also be interested to know that Little hired another player in the PACT debacle: Bill Drinkard, the ex-Senator, ex-lobbyist, ex-campaign manager, ex-PACT Board member, and convicted felon. In December 2007, Little hired Drinkard as his assistant under a $50,000 annual contract. The Senate did not consider any other candidates for the job.

Just one big happy dysfunctional family.

 [originally posted 4/08/09 at  havealittletalk. Comments can be found at that site.]

Prepayment happens all the time.

Consider, for example, buying magazines issue by issue at the bookstore or yearly by subscription. If I get an offer to subscribe to a magazine I read monthly for $12 annually, why would I choose instead to pay the $2, or $3, or $4 cover price twelve times a year? When I buy my PAP, let’s call it, that is, my Prepaid Affordable Periodicals, am I entering into an implicit contract or am I acting on faith? I send in my check and twelve times a year, the company sends me its magazine. The advantage to me is obvious, but the company wouldn’t be doing it if there wasn’t an advantage for them: they have some capital to work with. They take my PAP money and put it with all the other PAP funds and get to work.

And what about PATs, that is, Prepaid Affordable Tickets?

Those of us who have made our own travel arrangements and flown using our own funds will know what I’m talking about; others, such as public servants and university trustees, are advised to pay very close attention. The earlier you get your ticket the cheaper it is (unless you get very very lucky and can get a last minute fare to the exact place you want to go the exact days you want to travel).  You pay ahead of time — weeks, months – and when the day of departure comes, you show up, and away you go. OK, there is a lot of annoying removal of shoes, and then there’s the tarmac camp-out, but eventually, off you go. With a PAT, the airline has had your money to work with for weeks or months, and in exchange for paying it to them ahead of the time you need their service, you get a lower fare than the guy who just shows up an hour before the plane’s doors shut.

But what if the airline goes bankrupt after you’ve purchased your PAT? Well, then you are in a mess. Take your place among the creditors.

 And bankruptcy?

This brings me to something strange about the PACT debacle. If – when – the PACT fails, won’t that mean it is bankrupt?

Yet no one seems to be using that word.

Individuals go bankrupt. Corporations go bankrupt. Even municipalities can go bankrupt.

If it’s a corporation, then the CEO goes to bankruptcy court, right? And for a municipality, the mayor or city council has to work with the judge, right? A state can’t, but can a state entity? Maybe. Consider this: 11 U.S.C. 101(40) . . . defines municipality as a “political subdivision or public agency or instrumentality of a State.”

But can a Program go bankrupt? What are the mechanics?  I mean, it can’t take on human form or grow little feet and prance on down to the courthouse. No, some person or people would have to have a little talk with the judge.

So is that why no one is talking about bankruptcy? Or, to put that question a bit differently, will the PACT Program have to go bankrupt before we find out what its legal status is and who is accountable?

[originally posted 3/31/09 at  havealittletalk. Comments can be found at that site.]

Click on Archives [above] or here to read the rest of the posts in this series.

[originally posted 3/30/09 at havealittletalk. Comments can be found at that site.]

According to the Callan Associates, Alabama’s PACT advisors, last year:

The extreme market conditions spared no one and other public plans suffered significant losses as well. Some plans fared better than others depending on asset allocation and manager performance, but public plans in the top quartile still experienced 20+ percent losses. Most pension funds, and state prepaid plans, are now facing similar issues as the Prepaid Affordable College Tuition Plan, going from being close to or fully funded to an underfunded – in some cases, significant – status.

I offer a counter example: Florida.

Florida’s Prepaid Tuition Program isn’t about to fail. Its biggest problem, as reported in the Miami Herald, is

that the Senate Higher Education Appropriations Committee has been talking about borrowing from the Florida Prepaid College Board. The program has billions on hand.

An Ernst & Young analysis as of Jan. 31 shows the program with $8.8 billion in total assets, $8.3 billion in contract liabilities and an actuarial reserve of $468 million. The board touts a conservative investment strategy financially guaranteed by the state. Florida prepaid officials said they are reassuring concerned parents that the money is safe.

‘We’re telling them that there’s no legislation in place right now and we will continue to keep their plans’ safety and their contracts’ safety as our No. 1 priority,” said spokesman Kimberly Sirmans.

What went right in Florida?

 Two things: One, conservative investments; two, keeping a lid on state schools’ tuition. The importance of containing costs is perhaps at least as critical as making good investment decisions. Consider this report from the Herald:

.  . . The 80-year-old mastermind of the successful Florida Prepaid College Program says he is willing to spend a half-million dollars to fight proposed legislation that would allow universities to increase their own tuition, fearing it will kill the prepaid program by making it too expensive for parents.

Stanley G. Tate, a South Florida businessman who served as chairman of the Florida Prepaid board of directors for 18 years, is working . . . to begin a campaign against bills that would give six of Florida’s public universities the power to increase undergraduate residential tuition by up to 15 percent each year. . . .

“It’s going to cost a lot of money to do this, and I’ll spend as much as I need to because this is my legacy,” Tate said about the program, which in 2006 was renamed the Stanley G. Tate Florida Prepaid College Program. “People don’t understand, 20 years from now, what this will mean.”

Florida Prepaid sells contracts that allow parents to lock in today’s college prices for future tuition and fees. The plans can be paid for in one lump sum or monthly installments. More than 881,000 children have had plans purchased for them since the beginning of the program in 1988.

The program, which has assets of $8 billion, traditionally has invested conservatively with the assumption that tuition would increase on average between 6 percent and 6.5 percent annually.

But that restriction, and other factors, have pushed lawmakers to keep tuition low, and Florida university tuition and fees are now thousands of dollars below national averages. With state funding for higher education waning, school presidents have fought harder than ever to gain the ability to increase their own tuition above what is set each year by lawmakers. Current Florida tuition and fees for a 30-credit year range between $3,711 and $3,919, depending on the school.

Under the proposed legislation, tuition could increase to the national average, which now stands at about $6,585, according to the College Board.

Did you notice that the chairman of Florida’s Board is not a politician? Maybe that should be the third item on the list of what went right in Florida.

I didn’t realize until this PACT debacle how little control the Alabama State Legislature has over Alabama State-supported institutions of higher learning.

And I think that I’m likely not alone in having assumed, as a PACT buyer, that since the PACT program was created by the State, one reason it was a sure thing — that I was paying in advance for my kids’ tuition at a State school —  was that the Treasury and the Legislature and the Boards of Trustees at these universities were all singing from the same hymn book.

Lesson learned: assume nothing when it comes to the Alabama kleptocracy.

Tuition at the two universities where most PACT buyers enroll is  UA-Tuscaloosa, $6400 and Auburn, $5880.

Tuition at the University of Florida is $3790.

Go figure.

So there I was, plodding along, when I came across a list of members of the Board of Directors in the “Report on the Wallace-Folsom College Savings Investment Plan, State of Alabama, Montgomery, Alabama, October 1, 2003 through September 30, 2006.” I decided to google a few names unknown to me, and started with the Hon. William H. Drinkard,  Member,  Cullman, AL, who resigned May 2005.

And guess what I found out? This “Bill” Drinkard, who served as Jim Folsom, Jr.’s campaign manager in 1990 (his father managed the senior Folsom’s two gubernatorial races), was once in the Alabama Senate, then he became a lobbyist (First Alabama was among his clients), and then he got into a little trouble with the law. In 1996,

… Drinkard pleaded guilty to first-degree theft for arranging a 15,000 grant in 1989 to the town of Altoona and distributing the money as legal fees to Pelham lawyer John Tanner, a former state legislator who served as a legal adviser to Lt. Gov. Folsom. Drinkard later acknowledged receiving 5,000 from Tanner. [Birmingham News, 2/11/2000].

For more details, here’s a report by the Birmingham News’ Philip Rawls [9/3/95], “Investigation of Folsom’s Friends Stems from ‘88 Water Law”:

The indictments against two of former Gov. Jim Folsom’s closest friends stem from a law that was supposed to help rural Alabamians get public water systems to replace their unreliable wells.
No one got any water systems, but former Sen. Bill Drinkard and former Rep. John Tanner were charged with first-degree theft for their alleged roles.
     Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who brought the charges, has said only that Drinkard used his position as senator to get a $66,000 state grant for the town of Altoona and then had $15,000 of it funneled to Tanner, a Shelby County lawyer, for legal work that was never done.
. . . The law also set up a six-member legislative committee that had oversight over the water authority. Folsom and House Speaker Jimmy Clark appointed the six committee members and Folsom named Drinkard as chairman of the group. Drinkard, a friend of Folsom’s since childhood, was a legislative ally when Folsom served as lieutenant governor.
     Barron’s and Britnell’s hopes for expanding public water systems fizzled when the authority never got any money from the Legislature.
. . . Tanner’s attorney, Doug Jones, said Drinkard hired Tanner to do legal work for the Water Assistance Legislative Oversight Committee and paid him a $15,000 retainer. Drinkard was already employing Tanner at the time as attorney for the Senate Rules Committee, which Drinkard headed, he said.. . . Jones contends Tanner is innocent, but Graddick says Drinkard will admit he made one bad mistake that blemished “an otherwise outstanding legislative career.”

Well, we all make “mistakes,” — but is committing a crime quite the same thing? –, and Drinkard did serve five years’ probation, work 26 Saturdays at a work-release center, and perform 100 hours community service (among his gigs was playing Santa Clause) for stealing public monies, but still, I ask you, can you get your mind around his being appointed to a board that oversees millions and millions of dollars entrusted to the State of Alabama by taxpayers to prepay their kids’ college tuition?

Just one more thing. Things get stranger and stranger. I don’t know why Drinkard resigned. Maybe he wanted to devote more time to writing fantasy. In 2008 he published a novel, Elom, and I’ll let another blogger explain it to you:

Drinkard’s book Elom  is a sci-fi novel that introduces (according to Publisher’s Weekly):
“a low-tech world where human reproduction is controlled to concentrate desirable traits. Life is regulated by the scriptures of Geerna, a primitive human who long ago reached a covenant with the goddess Shetow. The wise women of the Medora Council interpret Geerna’s words and protect her secret prophecies, overseeing the competitions where adolescents demonstrate their skills and suitability for mating.”

Got that:  ”overseeing the competitions where adolescents demonstrate their skills and suitability for mating.”

I have nothing to add.

When I started looking into the PACT, I had no feelings about Kay Ivey. That changed when I discovered she was encouraging parents and grandparents to buy into the program as late as January 13, 2009 (# 3 in this series).

And I just keep stumbling across more and more about the Alabama State Treasurer.

I’d really like to see evidence to support this statement from the 2008 PACT Financial Report, page 3, second-to-last paragraph:

During the year, the Board had extensive discussions with the consultant concerning manager performance and issues of concern with turmoil in the market.

How “extensive” could those discussions have been if Kay had this to say in “Financial aftershocks hit state programs,” a report by  Bob Johnson published in the Tuscaloosa News  October 6, 2008 [emphasis added]:

Meanwhile, state Treasurer Kay Ivey said two programs to help families save money to send their children to college have dropped 7 percent, but over the past five years showed gains ranging from 9.9 percent to 17 percent.

The programs are the Prepaid Affordable College Tuition Plan, which allows parents to put money into the plan’s investment portfolio when a child is young to pay for four years of college tuition in the future, and the Alabama Higher Education 529 Fund, which allows parents to invest money and use the proceeds to pay college expenses.

“The college savings plan is very dependent on the market,” Ivey said. “When the market goes up, it’s great. When the market comes down, it’s not so great.”

Where did that 7 percent come from, anyway? Was Ivey a] misquoted, b] deluded, or c] lying? If a] is the case, where’s the correction? If you were the State Treasurer and grossly misquoted, wouldn’t you demand that a follow-up story appear? Well?

If you were State Treasurer…

You could attend the annual conferences of the National Association of State Treasurers. And I bet you wouldn’t have to pay for it yourself.

You could have spent a week this past August in Rockport, Maine at the Samoset Resort Hotel,  ”a legendary landmark [that]continues a tradition of gracious hospitality and service reminiscent of a bygone age.

 The 230 oceanside acre resort hotel offers championship golf , four-diamond dining , luxurious guest rooms and first class resort amenities for your Maine vacation.”

 In 2007 the conference was in Sunriver, Oregon — another nice place to beat the August Alabama heat.

I wonder if there will be money for Kay to go to this summer’s conference at  St. Regis Monarch Beach in Dana Point, California.

I know she made the Maine conference because she was a panelist on a “Treasurers Innovations Roundtable.” Her contributuion?

I’ll let the program tell you:

Hon. Kay Ivey, Alabama: Achieving Accountability with Strategic Planning

Achieving Accountability with Strategic Planning. . . Achieving Accountability with Strategic Planning. . .  Achieving Accountability with Strategic Planning

I’ve nothing to add.

The reports I’ve read thus far about yesterday’s meeting have led me to conclude that the Board has a formidable grasp of the obvious. They shouldn’t recruit more bodies to join those adrift on their sinking ship. They’ve got to scramble and find funds. They’re going to get sued.  Duh.

But I’m not sure why they need t0 run out and hire a lawyer when they’ve got one on board: Russell Buffkin of Mobile. I haven’t found any evidence that he is particularly savvy about hiring investment firms, but he does specialize in contract law. In fact, when I came across that scrap, I wondered if  he was assigned to the board for the purpose of  finding weasel ways out of the program’s contractual obligations.

It will take some time to think about the reports posted last night on the State of Alabama Treasury’s PACT site, but until then, 2 observations:

1. Remember back in Part 4 of this series I noted:

The Gang of 8 or 9, aka Managers:  The Investment Policy & Guidelines Statement  for the PACT adopted November 19, 2008 lists 8 Managers in Appendix B. The FAQ added March 13, 2009 to the PACT website lists 9…

Guess what? Now it’s The Gang of 9 or, maybe, 10.

The first thing to leap out at me, so obvious is it, as I look at the newly posted 2008 Financial Report and the presentation by Callan Associates at yesterday’s Board meeting in Montgomery were these 2 statements:

First, from Callan:

The PACT portfolio is invested with nine different institutional

asset managers who each have a different investment mandate.

The objective is to create a portfolio diversified by asset class and

investment manager.

And now from page 10 [Note 2, Cash & Investments] of the Financial Report dated September 30, 2008:

As of September 30, 2008, the PACT program had ten money managers to invest plan assets.

So did someone drop out between September and now? What happened: did they zero out the money entrusted to them?

Why is it so hard to count to ten?

2. And the other obvious thing: The Financial Report from September 30, 2008 is a draft. Come on, folks. Today is March 25, 2009. This means in 5 days it will be March 30 [right, CA? still with me? Need to grab a calculator? I’ll wait). Now then, let’s try counting together: October, November, December, January, February, and March. Six, right? Six months later all we have is a draft report? Why?