The City Commission will take up an emergency ordinance implementing new provisions of the 2020/21 Collective Bargaining Agreement between the City and the Teamsters leaving the contribution cap for employees at 13.5% in lieu of 15%. This negation increases the city’s required contribution by $182,725, from $23,617,003 to $23,799,728.
The proposed lowering of the required employee contribution cap does not directly add to the city’s unfunded liability costs, however, there are other ways to go about negotiating employee benefits with the discipline of leaving the contribution cap untouched.
During the Great Recession years, former City Manager Pat Salerno among his serious flaws of rough managerial personality and lying to commissioners, undoubtedly did revive the city’s finances by building up a sizable reserve and changing the sails of the pension plan, of which he required a strict employee contribution. In 2013, the teamsters contributed 17%. Salerno resigned in 2014.
Subsequent administrations continued the habit of reducing employee pension contribution in lieu of salary increases or one-time bonuses. The pension plan expects approximately 4.6% of salary increases. The most recent report (June 5, 2019) indicated only 1.9% in salary increases, in which the actuaries rely on for rate of return calculations.
Ultimately it is a managerial-style decision on how to negotiate with the union with commission approval. In addition, a possible COLA (Cost Of Living Adjustment) could also reach the commission in due time.
The city’s unfunded pension plan liability currently exceeds $209 Million. New hires still have the option to join either the pension or a 401(a) plan. The city says about 50% of new hires choose the pension.
Commissioners will vote on this Tuesday, October 13th at 9:00am.
Please, Gables Insider- publish the vote so the citizens can see which of our commissioners are keeping the union stranglehold on our tax dollars and which of them want to move toward making the 50% unfunded pension liability of $300 million less onerous to taxpayers. It is totally unsustainable and the private sector is paying for a deal that they could NEVER get themselves.
Gee Henry, didn’t your Mother teach you to use better language and not to be so full of hate ??
All I did was make a factual statement!! I don’t know why you are so angry and I hope you get a grip on life before you get into serious trouble!!
Mr. McKinney, What an excellent post from a City Beautiful resident! My mother used to say that people resort to the use of profanity and insults when they have no way to defend their arguments. After reading your comment I agree with her! You speak about “a revolving door of incompetency,” would you rather keep the incompetent employees working for the City and increasing their pensions? Why would anyone want to retain incompetent employees? Speaking of “losers, you may not be aware that our payroll has a number of employees that came from a neighboring city to work here and be protected by their friends because they were afraid that their positions were about to be eliminated resulting in their firing! You may call it coincidental, but how many coincidences would anyone believe? You may want to google their names or request their personnel records! What about upper tier employees working from home while traveling to visit relatives? You speak of “rich people problems”; only “rich people,” need dead animals removed? Why should we go anywhere else to receive the services that Coral Gables is known for and that we are happy to support with our taxes?
This article was obviously written by an employee who is a beneficiary of the lavish benefits that CG employees get- free healthcare for life, retire at 45-52 years old at 50-75% of salary with an automatic 3% increase each year, etc. No private sector worker could come close to matching that gravy train with the Social Security they get at 66 years old. Ask the city for a copy of the pension payments being made- it will blow your socks off.
The taxpayers contributed $29 MILLION to the plan last year. The employees contributed $4 million. Getting very tired of their bellyaching over a deal that taxpayers paying them could never in their wildest dream get. The total liability we owe employees is $600 MILLION ! Where is the sanity. Hoping that together Vince Lago, Jorge Fors and Mike Mena can bring some fiscal responsibility to our city.
I see what you did there, John Davis. Yet, you would be the first to call the government to wipe your ass. We pay taxes in this city for a reason- to receive exceptional service on a daily basis. The benefits provided to city employees are a part of those taxes. We want to retain these employees.
Would you rather have a revolving door of incompetency? Staff that leave constantly because they do not want to deal with high maintenance residents with rich people problems? My neighbor called the city to remove a dead possum on Christmas Day! And staff came to pick it up! On Christmas Day! I think that is absurd, mind you. My neighbor is a loser that cannot wipe his own ass. But the point is, go somewhere else and find that service. You won’t!
Assuming there are 50,000 residents in this city, their individual unfunded liability amounts to over
$4100 PER RESIDENT!