by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Warren Jones said the City Council was morally obligated to pass a controversial amendment to the pension plan of the City’s correctional officers.
Daniel Davis said he will make the City’s three pension plans a priority during his last two-and-a-half years in office.
Jack Webb called the legislation a “bad case study” in pension plans.
Michael Corrigan said the City should uphold an agreement it signed three years ago.
Stephen Joost consulted an attorney before making his final decision.
And, Clay Yarborough simply wants to know where the City will get the money to pay for its pension plans.
If it sounds like the members of the Council Finance Committee tried hard to reject legislation that amends the plan of the corrections officer, you would be right. In the end, however, the committee voted 6-1 Monday in favor of the bill (only Yarborough voted against it, as he did earlier in the Rules Committee meeting), which now needs a two-thirds vote of the Council Tuesday night.
The complicated legislation is the third phase of a plan the Council approved in 2005 and involves several things including allowing the corrections officers to retire after 20 years and a 3 percent retroactive cost of living adjustment.
“We let them vet it out,” said Nelson Cuba, president of the Fraternal Order of Police. “We made a commitment to each other and we made an agreement.”
Two weeks ago when the Finance Committee voted to defer the bill, Cuba threatened to walk away from current collective bargaining negotiations and possibly sue the City for what’s owed in the third phase of the corrections officers’ plan.
After Monday’s vote, Cuba said he will be at the negotiating table as planned Feb. 13 and will work as best he can with City attorneys and the administration to devise a way to hold down future pension costs. According to the City, the corrections plan may cost taxpayers another $164 million over the next 30 years. The City says overall its three pension plans — corrections, general employees and police and fire — are underfunded by $1.2 billion as of September. Cuba says those numbers aren’t accurate because they are based on current market conditions and he’s convinced the market will recover over time.
Joost — one of the bill’s toughest opponents — said he eventually asked Tallahassee attorney Leonard Carson to look at the contract. Carson is an outside counsel who handles collective bargaining for the City.
“Mr. Carson said Mr. Cuba has a better case than our City attorneys,” Joost told the Finance Committee. “He said we could win the battle, but we’d lose the war. It makes my stomach churn. I have done all I can to search for the truth, but I am going to have to vote yes. This does me no good and I will probably never have the support of the police and fire, but I will take up pension reform.”
Davis said providing for the City’s police officers and firefighters is his top priority. However, he believes certain amenities will be cut in the next budget cycle in order to fully fund those two entities on a day-to-day basis and fulfill the pension obligations.
“I support this bill, but pension reform must take place,” said Davis.
Yarborough asked Sherry Hall of the mayor’s office how the City will fund police, fire, the pension plans and there other services it currently provides.
“Our job is to present a balanced budget and this will be part of it,” she said. “We are not at the point in the budget (process) where we can tell. We do not have revenues or expenditures for the next fiscal year yet. I am not prepared to discuss this in detail today.”
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