§ 217-a. Public information website. 1. The comptroller is hereby authorized to make available to the public on its website information about vendors of service award programs, both defined contribution programs and defined benefit programs, for volunteer firefighters. Such information shall include, but need not be limited to:

Terms Used In N.Y. General Municipal Law 217-A

  • program: means a defined benefit plan or defined contribution plan established or maintained under this article to provide service awards for active volunteer firefighters, pursuant to the benefit options specified by the sponsoring organization. See N.Y. General Municipal Law 215
  • Service award: means the benefit payable to a participant in a service award program. See N.Y. General Municipal Law 215

(a) categorization by class of all costs, fees and commissions of any type;

(b) rate of return on investment for one, three, five and ten year periods ending December thirty-first, including gross of all costs and net of all costs;

(c) length of time the company has been in business;

(d) information regarding management stability including the length of tenure of board members;

(e) description of investment structure including its ten largest holdings;

(f) statement of investment philosophy;

(g) list of all representatives and their relationship to any program sponsor;

(h) percentage of investments bought or sold during each year.

2. The comptroller is hereby authorized to develop and distribute to every vendor, not more than sixty days after the effective date of this section, a form that shall be used for the purpose of collecting the information required by subdivision one of this section and any other information the comptroller may deem desirable to accomplish the purposes of this section. Every vendor shall return such forms to the comptroller no later than ninety days after the effective date of this section and annually thereafter, but no later than March first of each year commencing in two thousand eight. The comptroller is hereby authorized to publish the information obtained from such forms and make it available to New York residents on the office of the comptroller website by July first, two thousand eight and annually thereafter.

3. As used in this section, "vendor" shall mean an organization duly authorized to do business in the state and which is qualified to administer and maintain records and accounts of defined benefit and defined contribution plans which meet the requirements for qualification under the internal revenue code and governmental defined benefit and defined contribution plans.