City Allowed to Move Forward with Pension Changes

It was business as usual at City Hall Thursday, after a court decision denied police and fire unions their request for a temporary restraining order to stop the city from moving forward with changes to city workers' pension plans and benefits.

The Hermosa Beach Firefighters Association and Hermosa Beach Police Officers Association filed a lawsuit in the Los Angeles County Superior Court against the city earlier this week seeking to negotiate changes in public safety employees' retirement benefits. 

"In today's economy, with shortages… we have so many components to factor," said Mayor Michael DiVirgilio as to why retirement benefits were cut.

Cutbacks were made in various city departments in an effort to save money, but the lawsuit claims that the city violated the "meet and confer" requirement under state law to negotiate these reductions with workers.

"The City decided that it would ignore state law, violate the employees' rights and unilaterally change the benefit package," said Corey Glave, an attorney representing the city's police and fire associations.

For example, the City Council unanimously approved a change in its contract with the CalPERS pension program for new employees despite a negotiations meeting to discuss salary and benefits scheduled for the day after on July 28, according to the police association.  

"I have full confidence the city followed all procedure," Councilman Kit Bobko said.

In fact, the City Council still has to vote again on the retirement benefit changes before the new plan is implemented. The court decided Thursday that it could not block the city from taking that vote, on Sept. 27.

If the City Council continues on the same path and votes to approve the changes on the 27th, then the case becomes ripe for court action, Glave said. If the city votes against the changes, he said, the case becomes moot.

For new hires at both the police and fire departments, the new plan causes more of their pension payments to come from their paychecks instead of the city.

Under the current pension plan, public safety workers who retire after the age of 50 will receive 3 percent of an annual salary, multiplied by the number of years worked. That 3 percent changes to 2 percent for new hires under the proposed pension plan.

Sgt. Kevin Averill, who has been part of the Hermosa Beach Police Department for more than 15 years, said that he hopes the City will reconsider how these new benefits could potentially affect the community by discouraging skilled officers from joining the department.

"This will kill our ability to recruit people," he said before adding that if he saw this new pension plan when he first moved to Hermosa from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, he wouldn't have taken the job.

Bobko said that all residents can see police officers' salaries online, as the city just posted employee salaries on its website Thursday.

Officers earned between $50,000 and $90,000 annually, according to the salaries chart for calendar year 2009. The highest-paid Sergeant earned near $150,000 with overtime. "And they can retire at 50 years old," Bobko added.

But Averill also said that a large part of what the City would pay for health benefits was cut back for both single police officers and those with families in the new pension plan.  

"The medical benefit percentage paid by the City is going from 100 percent to 75 percent," he said. "It's extreme."

The City Council found the actions taken by the police and fire associations to be extreme. DiVirgilio said that cutbacks and the budget were discussed at many past City Council meetings. So when he received a copy of the filed lawsuit Tuesday, it was a troubling surprise.

"We've been in negotiations for months," he said.