Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 24, 1995 TAG: 9506260151
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
He couldn't be reached to confirm it, but Joel Schlanger probably had his best birthday ever Friday.
The former Roanoke finance director turned 55. That makes him eligible to collect his 2-for-1 pension - about $54,000 this year.
And if he fulfills the expectations of actuaries by living another 27 years, Schlanger will collect a cool $1,458,000 between now and when he turns 82.
That's a sum many Lotto winners would envy. And it doesn't include cost-of-living adjustments or bonuses.
"Historically - for the last six or seven years, at least - [City] Council has been granting a 3 percent increase or a 3 percent lump sum each year," said Finance Director Jim Grisso.
Schlanger left city government under a cloud in January 1993, after the Roanoke Times & World-News revealed that he had rung up $1,788 in long-distance charges for personal calls on his city telephone.
He now works as deputy finance director in Baltimore County, Maryland. Earlier this year, he notified the city by letter that he would be eligible to collect his pension.
It's little wonder that it was on his mind. After all, Schlanger wrote the controversial enhanced pension law and sold it to council, telling them incorrectly that costs would be negligible.
Without it, his pension this year would be about $28,800, or $26,000 less than it is now.
Grisso said Schlanger's check will be cut in a lump sum at the end of next month.
Schlanger isn't the first high-ranking city official to reap thousands of dollars in benefits from the pension change. Bill Brogan, the former municipal auditor, retired only a few months after the second and most profitable change in the pension plan was enacted in June 1992.
Altogether, the plan applied to 18 council members and top city officials, most of whom are either still in office or haven't reached retirement age yet.
Ultimately the ``2-for-1 pension plan," as it became known, turned out to be the most lucrative municipal pension plan in Virginia.
Council closed it in September 1992 after a public outcry. But it couldn't take back what it already had promised.
The enhanced pension plan was born in 1989, when officials from the city and Roanoke County were sitting down to talk about consolidation.
The thinking was, if pension benefits were sweetened, council and its appointed officers would have less to worry about if they lost their jobs during a merger.
So the six council-appointed officers - the city manager, municipal auditor, director of real estate valuation, city clerk, finance director and city attorney - struck a deal with council. In fiscal 1990, they agreed to accept beefed-up retirement benefits - getting two years' credit for every year worked - rather than a pay raise.
Consolidation was rejected by voters in a 1990 referendum. But in 1992, the pension plan was sweetened for top officials again.
Schlanger was out of his office on Friday and could not be reached for comment.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***