Last week community members made their voices heard at the quarterly Franklin County Investment Advisory Committee (IAC) meeting. Despite the public meeting being held at 2pm on a weekday, constituents filled the back rows of the Franklin County Government Center meeting room, many taking time off of work to show up.
This is the second consecutive IAC meeting to receive significant public scrutiny as a result of recent reports on Franklin County’s substantial investments in Israel Bonds.
Following the regularly scheduled investment portfolio meeting, constituents were given five minutes each to ask questions and struggled to get straight answers on the County’s investment protocol and Israel Bonds. Treasurer Brooks-Sullivan and other members of the advisory committee repeatedly stated they do not consider politics or morals when making investment decisions, emphasizing they are guided by the law and referring constituents to the General Assembly if they want to change the law.
“You’re coming to political subdivisions, government entities that don’t create the law that we are following. Your relief is in the General Assembly…General Assembly passed a law specifically about investment and engagement with Israel, we are still under that law,” stated Brooks-Sullivan.
During the discussion, Brooks-Sullivan clarified several aspects of the public reporting. She claimed the Treasurer’s office has not begun any discussion on how to invest the $7.5 million the county will receive from Israel Bonds holdings that will mature in 2025. Previous reports showed that the county has consistently chosen to re-invest cash received on maturity by purchasing new Israel Bonds.
When pressed on the question of whether the Treasurer has a legal obligation as required by the General Assembly to continue to invest in Israeli Bonds, Brooks-Sullivan stated “No” and reiterated, “I plan to continue to invest until it is no longer considered a good investment.”
The referenced law which took effect in 2017 also doubled the amount state and county funds can invest in foreign governments from a one percent cap to two percent. However, the only foreign government eligible for investment according to their criteria is Israel, and the law effectively doubled investment in Israel Bonds at the state level and among some counties, of which Franklin County is the biggest contributor.
Current law in the State of Ohio prevents the resale of Israel Bonds assets on the secondary bond market, a process which would transfer ownership of the bond to another entity. Residents are instead advocating the treasurer immediately cease further investment in Israel Bonds, including the reinvestment of cash received upon bond maturity.
One constituent pursued more transparency on the process of weighing investment options, asking “How do you decide between investment options if they’re equally safe, liquid, and profitable…[and] have the same [portfolio] balance?”
Brooks-Sullivan responded: “I’m not going to do hypothetical answers.”
Community members asserted the inherent moral responsibility of managing taxpayer money, “Would you as the Treasurer support endowing some combination of yourself and the investment advisory council with an ethical obligation to their bonds, notwithstanding just this current conflict but many other conflicts as you mention will come up in the future. Do you as the County Treasurer think that it is correct that you are blind to the ethics of things when this large an amount of money can be incredibly harmful both to your own constituents and to the people on the receiving end of that money?”
Brooks-Sullivan replied: “I don’t even know where to begin to answer that, but no.”
The next quarterly meeting of the IAC is scheduled for Thursday October 17 at 2pm at the Franklin County Government Center at 373 South High Street. This meeting will be open to the public.
