But it looks like the R code you posted has the first estimate as +0.4?
cor(Intercept,exper_c) 0.39 0.06 0.27 0.50 1222 1.00
cor(Intercept,hgc.9_c) 0.35 0.32 -0.37 0.90 1163 1.00
cor(exper_c,hgc.9_c) 0.02 0.39 -0.74 0.81 721 1.01
looks consistent with
Rho_0 (0.40 +/- 0.055)
Rho_1 (0.29 +/- 0.18)
Rho_2 (0.00 +/1 0.30)
If anything the variances are a little off. What’s actually wrong here? Just the convergence of the fixed effects?