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State considers making disability
benefits better

Times Staff Writer

©St. Petersburg Times, published April 8, 1996

TALLAHASSEE -- Retirement benefits for Florida police officers and firefighters are among the most generous in the nation and they could get even better.

State lawmakers are considering a bill that, among other things, would make it impossible to force injured public safety employees to take less strenuous city jobs instead of retiring on disability pensions.

The bill, which is raising the hackles of many local officials, could affect nearly 350 pension plans across the state and cost taxpayers millions of dollars a year.

"You have gigantic abuses if the system is so liberal I don't know how you can move further in that direction," said St. Petersburg City Council member Bob Kersteen. "We are getting way out of being in the real world and we can't continue."

Kersteen was referring to a recent Times series that found disability pensions in St. Petersburg, Tampa, Clearwater and Largo so lucrative that police officers and firefighters can collect more in disability benefits than they would get from normal retirements.

In St. Petersburg, one in every eight retired public safety employees is out on disability. In Tampa, Largo and Clearwater it's one in three including some who have gone on to such physically demanding activities as quarter-horse riding and sailboat racing.

The bill, backed by the firefighters union and the 31,000-member Police Benevolent Association, would:

• Prohibit cities from forcing injured public safety officers to take light-duty jobs elsewhere in city government.

• Reduce pension contributions of police and firefighters to 5 percent of their salaries from the current 7 percent or so. Taxpayers would have to make up the difference.

• Allow firefighters to count four years of military service toward the years of employment needed to retire on a regular pension.

"I think it's a good bill, something that should have been done a long time ago," said David Murrell, director of legislative services for the Police Benevolent Association.

Many municipal officials disagree. "They're trying to make it richer," said Kim Adams, Largo finance director. "I don't understand it."

In the wake of the Times series, Adams said he will ask the Largo Police Officers and Firefighters Pension Fund to conduct frequent re-examinations of employees out on disability pensions. Those found to have recovered could be recalled to work.

But like other city officials in the Tampa Bay area, Adams said much of the onus for curbing abuses in disability pensions falls on state lawmakers.

"The Legislature did an excellent job rewriting workers' compensation laws several years ago," he said. "It was putting companies out of business. They need to do the same thing with police and fire pension legislation. The only difference is cities are not going to go out of business, they're either going to cut services or raise taxes."

St. Petersburg city officials have crafted a resolution opposing the bill, which they say could cost city taxpayers nearly $2.3-million a year.

St. Petersburg requires injured employees to take other light-duty jobs within city government. However, the state Division of Retirement has ruled that the city's policy is illegal and has been withholding money from a tax on homeowners and car insurance policies that helps finance local police and fire pension funds.

Andrew Houston, St. Petersburg employees relations director, said the city could lose its lawsuit against the Division of Retirement if the bill becomes law.

Police and firefighters unions have "decided to do a political slam dunk on us and take the issue to the Legislature," said Houston. "That would be picked up by the taxpayers of St. Petersburg. It totally circumvents the collective bargaining process."

The bill also could negate recent changes made to the Clearwater Pension Plan, which had been one of the most liberal in the Tampa Bay area.

Last fall, voters approved changes that lowered disability benefits from 75 percent to 66 percent of the last five years' average salary and forced injured employees to work other city jobs. The changes previously had been endorsed by the police and firefighters unions.

"Pensions are subject to bargaining," said Kathy Rice, Clearwater's deputy city manager. "We did not do this without coming to agreement first with the firefighters and police officers."

The bill expanding retirement benefits has yet to clear a House committee and would have to be approved by the full House and Senate before becoming law. But with the support of powerful police and firefighters unions, it is given a good chance of passage.

"It's on the fast track," Herb Polson, St. Petersburg's intergovernmental relations director, told council members last week. "For us to wait much more time on this would be too late."

Times staff writer Adam Smith contributed to this report.