PB 03/26/1998 Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Police Officers' and Firefighters' Pension Board March 26, 1998 Page 8 SCHLUCKEBIER: About all that you can do, might be to recommend to the City Commission that they restructure the General Employees' Pension Board to perhaps a two member and a third citizen or three appointees. CHRISTIANSEN: We can do that with General Employees, we can't do that with Police and Fire. SCHLUCKEBIER: There are no Statutory requirements with General, it is just a matter of preparing an ordinance. CHRISTIANSEN: Jeff and I had talked with the turn of events with respect to everyone opting out of the General Plan, whether you all want to continue that defined benefit plan. SCHLUCKEBIER: We really would look to the Board for some kind of direction, the reason being, there are several considerations (1) we obviously don't have a competitive pension benefit plan given that there is a defined contribution plan and out of the forty possible candidates, all forty opted for the defined contribution plan. One option is redefining vesting in the defined benefit plan to either a seven or five year vesting period and possibly even opening the window back up to the people that opted out of the benefit plan to rejoin the plan. CHRISTIANSEN: So your thought is to make a change in the vesting period in the defined benefit plan to make it more competitive. SCHLUCKEBIER: We want to be as fair and forthright as possible. CHRISTIANSEN: That is something that can certainly be done, so if you do want to change the vesting to a shorter vesting period, we can certainly do that. SCHLUCKEBIER: We have conflicting opinions on staff, the Finance Director who spends a lot of time on paperwork believes with forty employees out none remaining in the defined benefit plan would be the absolute perfect time to close that door. The Personnel Director believes the benefit plan should be retained as a benefit the City offers. CHRISTIANSEN: That is a decision the City is going to have to make and we can certainly, legally terminate the plan, and if you are going to terminate the plan, I would recommend terminating while there is nobody in it. I talked with our actuaries about this; I talked with the State Retirement Division and the State indicated there would be no objections if the City wanted to terminate the defined benefit plan and just have the defined contribution plan even though the City opted out of the State Retirement. The State indicated there were a number of cities that have gone to a defined contribution plan. The only concern expressed by the State was the funds remaining in the plan and that in all fairness place the funds in accounts of the employees that opted out the value of their