As Mayor Alvin Brown called on the Jacksonville City Council to pass his proposed pension reform legislation last week, the city's most influential corporate and civic group came out against the plan.
The Jacksonville Civic Council has urged the City Council to reject the fire and police pension deal in its current form, and instead proposed a new comprehensive solution.
Steve Halverson, CEO of the Haskell Company and chairman of the Jacksonville Civic Council, joined Melissa Ross to discuss their stand on the legislation.
One of the main points of contention is an additional $40 million to pay down the city's unfunded liability included in the mayor's plan. The Civic Council said that no dedicated funding source for this money was identified, and that comprehensive reform must include one.
Halverson said that pensions can't be thought of as independent to the rest of the budget because they are too large.
“The proposal that’s before the City Council is good… it has many good things in it,” he said, "but it’s expensive. It will cause us to spend $40 million more than is required, and $70 million more than we did just in 2013.”
Halverson’s main question is, where is the money coming from? He said that Mayor Brown has said how he is not going to pay for it, but hasn’t said yet how he will.
“There is no way that the voters can responsibly evaluate this proposal without knowing how it’s going to be paid for,” he said. “It’s disrespectful to taxpayers not to address that important element.”
This was one of the points made in a letter written by Halverson that was sent to the City Council and local media. Brown called this letter factually inaccurate.
“There are errors in that letter. This new agreement is an improvement from over 2013,” Brown said. “It generates an approximately an additional $300 million to savings as taxpayers, and increased annual pension contribution of current employees to 10 percent. It eliminates the guaranteed rate on return for current employees, in a deferred retirement option, meaning DROP. It changes the period of calculation, so they’re… it is incorrect.”
For Halverson, the bottom line is that you can’t undertake an obligation of this size without saying where the money comes from. He said that the Civic Council is in favor of any reasonable solution that works.
“Give it to the voters to decide,” he said. “It’s their money.”
You can follow Melissa Ross on Twitter @MelissainJax and Annie Black@helloannieblack.
