Any alterations to police members’ pension reform will have to be negotiated with the Police and Fire Pension Fund — not the police union, its president said Wednesday.
Mayor Alvin Brown announced Monday his plan for police pension reform, which he said would save $1.5 billion over 30 years by reducing benefits, raising employees’ contribution rates and lowering the assumed rate of return on investment, among other alterations.
That plan was delivered Monday to union leadership.
In a letter Wednesday to the City, union President Nelson Cuba rejected Brown’s attempt to negotiate with the union and called it “misguided.”
Cuba contends in the letter that the fund is the proper entity to handle pension issues for full-time police officers and firefighters with the City. He also contends the 30-year agreement between the City and fund continues to exist and was approved by the City’s legal counsel and City Council.
The agreement details minimum benefits the City agreed to provide the members over the life of the contract.
“Your proposal to change those benefits falls far below the promises your predecessors made,” Cuba said in the letter.
Cuba also said the union “has not in the past and will not in the future” negotiate such benefits and forwarded the information to John Keane, fund executive administrator, to facilitate negotiation.
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