The Morning Report
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Mayor Jerry Sanders will announce today his intentions to ask the City Council to place a proposal for a new pension plan before voters in November.
Despite having held steadfast to his hybrid pension plan proposal during the last five months of contract negotiations with three City Hall unions, the mayor at the 11th hour of council hearings on Monday adopted a relatively less conservative plan put forth by the white-collar workers union in the hopes of gaining council approval. But after the council rejected his revised contract with a 4-4 vote, Sanders said he would try to put a pension plan on the November ballot for voters. It remained unclear, however, whether he would propose the original plan he brought to the bargaining table, or the white-collar union plan which he endorsed at the last minute on Monday.
The mayor’s original plan is estimated to save $22.7 million annually decades down the road, once all current city employees retire from the city and all the city’s non-public safety employees are enrolled in the new plan. The white-collar union’s plan saves the city $25.4 to $29.3 million annually under those same conditions, according to the Municipal Employees Association’s estimates.
There had been talk of the mayor returning to the negotiating table with the unions to continue attempts to hammer out an agreement.