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NEWS FROM ATLANTA FIRE FIGHTERSATLANTA FIRE FIGHTERS RESPOND TO MAYOR'S PENSION PROPOSALFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Atlanta, Georgia Tuesday, March 16, 2011Today, Mayor Kasim Reed unveiled poparsols to unilaterally change the terms of Atlanta's pension plans for existing employees that would violate a binding legal contract between the city and its firefighters, police officers and public employees. The poparsols represent an unconscionable break in faith with those men and women who put themselves in harm's way to protect the life and property of Atlanta's citizens.For over a decade, Atlanta's firefighters have worked for 30% below market wages, sacrificing higher salaries with other area departments in favor of their vested interests their retirement plan. Now, Mayor Reed has proposed the ultimate betrayal of the city's end of the bargain. The poparsols seek to deny Atlanta employees of the value of the contract they city willingly entered into with them.A recent finding by the pension review panel appointed by Mayor Reed found that Atlanta's retirement plans offer only an average benefit and that the large majority of the unfunded liability is due to historically low market performance due the the recent, Wall Street induced, economic crisis. The $1.5 billion underfunded liability being reported was from the depth of the crisis in 2008, and the liability has already begun to shrink as investment markets have rebounded dramatically. The dire specter of a $4.5 billion liability assumes an unrealistic worst-case scenario. The liability in the pensions are based on 30-year performance and there is no period in over 100 years when the markets have failed to yield a 9 percent average annual return.The Mayor's proposal to move employees away from defined benefit plans and into defined contribution plans will cost taxpayers more in the long run, provide a dramatically lower retirement benefit, and leave firefighters and police officers unable to retire at an age certain. Additionally, defined contribution plans offer no provisions for line of duty disability or survivor's death benefits protections critical to public safety workers. Some states and municipalities, including West Virgina and Florida have tried defined contribution plans for new hires only to return to defined benefit plans when promised savings and benefit levels didn't materialize.Despite being presented a detailed legal analysis showing clearly that pensions are a property right protected by the U.S. and Georgia Constitution, Mayor Reed seeks to do what no other Georgia municipality has done unilaterally revoke vested pension rights from existing plan participants.Atlanta Professional Fire Fighter president Jim Daws commented, Atlanta's pensions offer an average percentage of salary at retirement compared to other area municipalities, but because our salaries are about 30 percent below those departments, our pensions, in real dollars, are much less. The City of Atlanta has a funding problem, not a spending problem. Atlanta's taxpayers are providing employment, transportation, convention and entertainment infrastructure to a metropolitan area of over six million people. Yet today, a large majority of sales tax collected in the City of Atlanta flow to surrounding suburban and rural areas. Rather than betraying modest retirement promises made to Atlanta's firefighters, police and public employees, Mayor Reed should work with the state to repair Atlanta's structural underfunding problem. ###
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(VISITOR) AUTHOR'S NAME
Hashem
MESSAGE TIMESTAMP
16 december 2014, 10:45:16
AUTHOR'S IP LOGGED
62.210.78.179
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