THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 7, 1994 TAG: 9412070471
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
The Suffolk City Council is preparing to vote tonight on a 3 percent pay raise for city and state retirees that will help hundreds of local residents as well as two city councilmen.
Councilmen J. Samuel ``Sammy'' Carter and Thomas G. Underwood, who will both benefit from the pay raise, plan to vote in favor of the increase in the Virginia Retirement System checks.
Both men on the seven-member board said they are voting for other retirees, not themselves.
``We are looking at it from the perspective of the people who have retired from the city and are living on a very small pension,'' Carter, 65, said on Tuesday. ``They need this increase.
``Personally, I don't care if I get it or not.''
Carter is a retired Suffolk fire chief. Underwood is a retired assistant city manager and former interim manager for Suffolk. Carter left the city last year making $61,438 after 44 years of service. Underwood retired in 1991 making $65,886 after 30 years of service.
Both men have signed state documents saying they are ``able to participate in this transaction fairly, objectively, and in the public interest.''
The measure, if passed, will increase retirement checks for all former state and city retirees.
The state General Assembly passed a bill in July giving cities the option of approving and paying for the 3 percent benefits increase for current and future retirees.
If the council adopts the additional retirement increase and makes it effective as of Oct. 1, 1994, city officials estimate it could cost the city and the Suffolk School Board a total of $213,000 for one year.
The increase would become effective on July 1, 1996.
C. Lee Acors, Suffolk finance director, said Tuesday that the average local retiree would receive $27 a month more in benefits.
Suffolk has estimated there are 110 retirees in the state retirement system in the city who receive monthly checks ranging between $111.75 to $3,590.
Acors estimates that if the 3 percent increase is passed, those checks would increase between $3.35 and $107.
City officials, including City Manager Myles E. Standish and City Attorney J. Edward Roettger Jr., declined to comment.
Underwood said he was voting for the city's current employees as well.
``It's like the council voting on the operating budget and, in turn, giving themselves a pay raise,'' he said. ``It's not that important to me. It is for the people who would be approaching retirement. . . . Even if the council decided not to give it to me, that would be fine.'' by CNB