More later, but the committee voted 4-3 to leave things the way they are for now.
The four votes for the status quo came from union reps. The three no votes were from city Treasurer Bill Veits, Finance Chairman Rich Miecznikowski and T.J. Barnes, the GASB 45 Committee chairman.
But there was a clear indication that the unions are willing to consider using some of the pension money to pay for medical care for retirees so it may happen someday, especially if the stock market rebounds.
Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
10 comments:
Sorta takes Art off the hook, doesn't it?
And what did Mr. Johnson have to say ?
OMG! So you're telling me that the union guys voted against it? I didn't see that coming at all! Unbelievable!
Unfortunately, they might have shot themselves in the foot. Now they get nothing out of this at all. They keep their bloated pension fund and everything stays the same. No increase in benefits, no negotiations, nothing. Everyone of them was saying it needed to be negotiated. Maybe, maybe not, but in good faith the city should negotiate and give something for the transfer of funds. Now it appears that may never happen.
All sarcasm aside - is this now a dead issue, or can it still be revisited later? Everyone can stand to benefit from this - both taxpayers and the unions.
Thank God for Art Ward.
All of the City Unions (police, fire, city hall, and outside workers) have tried to no avail to develope a plan thru negotiations to fund benefits for retirees. This idea was started back in the mid 90's and continues even today. For some reason, the City takes the position - if I can't have it my way, it will be no way.
Too bad the public doesn't have a better picture of the benefits the city employees are getting.
Now that we have a newspaper, maybe a complet outline can be published.
The unions will never let a full picture of what the get make it into the newspapers. Taxpayers would revolt.
6:54
It is public information.
The elected oficials AND/OR the media can make it public.
It would just take a little work to go through the contracts and put it all together.
"All of the City Unions (police, fire, city hall, and outside workers) have tried to no avail to develop a plan thru negotiations to fund benefits for retirees. This idea was started back in the mid 90's and continues even today. For some reason, the City takes the position - if I can't have it my way, it will be no way."
You mean, Diane Ferguson takes that position. The City Council never sees any of that stuff because it never gets past her and whoever happens to be sitting in the Mayor's chair that year. You want to discuss it? Why not send it directly to them? Their addresses are in the phone book.
This headline is very inflammatory and misleading. The Panel did not "do nothing". Actually, they decided that it was best to continue to protect the City's pension investments because in today's declining markets, it's questionable if there's even enough reserve to transfer the money. If they did and the markets continue their downward spiral, the city would have to, under IRS regs, transfer all the money back and still pay for OPEB benefits. This scenario would double-whack taxpayers.
To say they did nothing is plain wrong. They chose the most conservative route available.
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