The Board of the Concerned Taxpayers of Duval County passed the following resolution at its June 14th meeting.
A RESOLUTION OF THE CONCERNED TAXPAYERS OF DUVAL COUNTY CONCERNING THE CITY OF JACKSONVILLE DEFINED BENEFIT PENSION PLANS.
WHEREAS, the City of Jacksonville and associated governmental entities fund more than 2/3 of the cost of three defined benefit pension plans for public employees; and
WHEREAS, these 3 plans have funding deficits of more than $1.4 billion (as of 10/1/09), and these deficits are likely to increase; and
WHEREAS, these deficits are over $1,600 per Jacksonville resident and almost $5,000 per Jacksonville household, and are a drag on property values and new business; and
WHEREAS, the cost of funding these 3 plans is more than $110 million per year currently – about 7% of the City budget, and these figures and percentages are likely to increase, if no corrective action is taken;and
WHEREAS, these 3 plans, as they now exist, and far too costly to the City, and will cause the City to raise taxes in the future, if the plans are not eliminated or scaled back; and
WHEREAS, these plans are very costly to administer (about $14 million per year), and pay out over $215 million per year in benefits, and yet the City does not in fact have clear control of the administration of these plans; and
WHEREAS, private employers have largely stopped using defined benefit plans, and instead use defined contribution plans to provide retirement benefits for their employees; and
WHEREAS, proposals have been made to the Charter Revision Commission to give the City such clear control, and to bar future accruals of benefits under said plans after 2013; and
WHEREAS, the City’s currently outstanding collective bargaining proposals, even if adopted, will not prevent such future tax increases, or resolve the problem of lack of City control;
it is hereby RESOLVED, that the City Charter should be amended as described above, the City should revamp its current collective bargaining strategy so as to demand greater employee concessions, and the Mayor and City Council should take all other necessary and appropriate actions to scale back and eventually eliminate
these 3 plans, and replace them with defined contribution plans.
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