THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 11, 1995 TAG: 9504110315
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TONI WHITT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
When the city's staff searched for places to reduce the budget in this economically depressed city, it found something it believed would be an easy cut, wouldn't affect existing employees or services and could provide savings for decades to come.
The city staff proposed closing out the Portsmouth police and firefighters retirement plan. Current officers would not be affected, but it would mean that no new hires would be able to join the lucrative plan.
Instead, they would be forced to enroll in the state's retirement plan for law enforcement officers.
The cost of the Portsmouth plan has been on the rise for the past several years as the the City Council has made improvements, paying out more for longer service and at the same time shortening the years of service required to qualify. The retirement plan has been used as an incentive for officers to stay in Portsmouth, where pay is typically lower than in other cities.
This year, the proposed budget calls for more regionally competitive salaries in the Police and Fire departments, as well as in other city offices, as part of a move toward a new pay-for-performance plan. If the council approves the salary increases, the city manager and the chief finance officer have argued, the retirement incentive would no longer be needed.
But the police and firefighters unions are fighting the change - even though existing officers would not be affected.
``Somebody fought for us to have it when we weren't here,'' said Lloyd Beazley, president of the local firefighters union. ``We felt like we should fight for those firefighters who aren't here yet.
``Down the road, you're going to have two sets of employees, one under one system, one under another, and it's going to create problems internally,'' he added.
The police and firefighters unions have encouraged council members to wait at least a year until better cost predictions are available. But city finance officials predict that the cost of the retirement plan will increase by nearly 10 percent for every officer over the next two years and say the city can't afford the cost of adding the proposed 21 new officers to the plan.
KEYWORDS: PORTSMOUTH CITY COUNCIL RETIREMENT PLANS PORTSMOUTH POLICE
DEPARTMENT PORTSMOUTH FIRE DEPARTMENT by CNB