Mayor Lenny Curry doesn’t have a high opinion of the Police and Fire Pension Fund board seeking an outside legal opinion on the board’s powers.
Like many objections surrounding the pension fund in recent years, the root of Curry’s grievance was former director John Keane and his inclusion in a lucrative special pension plan the board created in 2000.
“The lengths Keane’s cronies will go to protect his outrageous benefits on the backs of taxpayers knows no bounds,” said Curry in the single-sentence email sent Monday to his senior staff.
Curry was referring to a Florida Times-Union story Friday about the pension fund board approving a call for state Attorney General Pam Bondi to review the structure between the city Office of General Counsel and board.
Keane was scheduled to make about $234,000 under his senior staff voluntary plan.
However, an April legal opinion by General Counsel Jason Gabriel strongly reinforced past city legal opinions that deemed the plan unauthorized.
Armed with that, the city instead is paying Keane more than $187,000, which is what he would have made under the city’s General Employees Pension Plan.
According to the Times-Union story, fund board member Bill Scheu said Friday the Bondi request wasn’t a challenge to the Gabriel opinion.
Instead, it was to review conflicting provisions in the city charter and state law relating to legal issues.
Curry wants to prepare a letter to send to Bondi so she has a “full understanding” of the issues, said Curry spokeswoman Marsha Oliver.
The mayor and his team are in the early stages of marketing a half-cent sales tax extension to voters.
If approved in August, the infrastructure tax that supported the Better Jacksonville Plan will be extended up to 30 years starting in 2030 to pay down the city’s more than $2.8 billion in unfunded pension liability.
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