City Council failed to defer a pension study this year, resulting in an anticipated $5.8 million hole in the 2011-12 City budget.
While 11 of the 18 members present voted to defer the study for another year, a supermajority of 13 votes was needed and the measure failed.
The City Charter requires the study to be conducted annually, while the state only requires it once every three years.
Several of the seven dissenting members spoke strongly against the deferral, saying the City should pay what it owes.
“The facts are crystal clear. We owe the money,” said Council member Richard Clark, chairman of the Council Finance Committee.
“If you owe the money, you pay the money,” he said.
“You don’t punt down the road.”
The study was waived last year and Mayor Alvin Brown did not include the anticipated additional pension payment in his proposed budget to Council in June.
Brown appeared before Council during its 4 p.m. agenda meeting to make a case for putting off the study for another year. He asked members to give his administration a year to find ways to budget for the study’s results.
At the 5 p.m. Council meeting, Clark told his colleagues they should not budget based on the administration’s goal of saving money over the next year or hoping that the economy recovers and lessens the burden.
When asked by Clark for his opinion, Council Auditor Kirk Sherman told Council it had been put in an awkward position because of timing but that the study should not be postponed. “This is something you need to do,” he said.
Council Vice President Bill Bishop agreed. “We might as well deal with reality,” he said.
Chris Hand, Brown’s chief of staff, said the administration did not like the position it is in but determined that waiving the study was the “best of the less-than-ideal options.”
Hand said Brown asks “to give him time to show what he can do.”
Council President Stephen Joost was among those in support of waiving the study for a year and cited Brown’s balanced budget without increases in taxes or fees as a reason.
“We all know we have to cut, we all know we have to save,” said Joost.
“Let’s give the man a year to figure out this hole.”
The $5.8 million could change because the study’s results must still be reviewed by the state actuary.
In the agenda meeting, Brown said the figure could rise to $10 million. In the Council meeting, Clark said the figure could be lower than the anticipated $5.8 million.
“Clearly, I wish the Council had waived it,” Brown said after the vote. “Now they are the ones who have to find the cuts.”
Council members Bishop, Clark, Johnny Gaffney, Bill Gulliford, Ray Holt, Matt Schellenberg and Clay Yarborough opposed the deferral.
Supporting the waiver were Joost, Greg Anderson, Lori Boyer, Reggie Brown, Doyle Carter, John Crescimbeni, Kimberly Daniels, Warren Jones, Jim Love, Robin Lumb and Don Redman.
Council member Denise Lee had an excused absence.
The mayor said the Council president could revisit the issue, but given the budget deadline of Oct. 1, it wasn’t likely.
Brown is willing to keep trying. “I’ll talk to anybody,” he said.
Regarding another bill, Brown will have two more months to discuss the issue of pension reform. Council members postponed the measure until Oct. 25.
The postponement was the other request Brown asked Council to grant during the agenda meeting.
Brown asked for 60 days so he and new Council members installed July 1 could look into reform further.
He said the 60-day extension was enough time. “I know where we want to go,” he said.
Council voted 17-1 to grant the request, with Joost dissenting.
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