Sarasota Police Union Rejects Contract

The union representing the unanimously rejected the city’s proposed ordinance and contract offer setting off a longer period of uncertainty for taxpayers and police benefits.

“This is new ground,” the city’s Director of Human Resources Kurt Hoverter told Patch. “I’ve been here a little over nine years and never been at this stage.”

The union, part of the Southwest Florida Chapter of the Florida Police Benevolent Association, unanimously rejected the contract offer Wednesday. The union had 90 percent participation, according to a letter sent to Interim City Manager Terry Lewis on Thursday informing him of the results. 

"My sense is that our commission will want to act in a timely matter, and this will be a priority issue," Lewis told Patch via e-mail.

(Patch has reached out to Michael McHale, president of the Southwest Florida Chapter of the Florida Police Benevolent Association for comment, but a message had not been returned before the initial posting of this article.)

This is another step in a complicated, multi-year process on negotiations that attempts to move new officers to a defined contribution plan that mirrored a 401(k) and away from pensions due to the city not having enough money to fund the pensions.

The proposed contract would have kept a guaranteed defined benefit plan while cutting cost-of-living adjustments for retirees from 3.2 percent to 1 percent. The plan will not affect those who already retired. 

That decision came in October after a special magistrate declared an impasse and brought forth recommendations of key pieces to a new contract. The previous contract expired in 2010 and both sides have operated under that agreement since the expiration, Hoverter explained.

What’s next? Much of it is unknown, but it’s in the city manager’s hands to bring back the news formally at a City Commission meeting where the City Commission can either impose what was brought forth in October or decide on “something different,” Hoverter said.

“We’ve had no meeting with staff for ‘something different,’” Commissioner Terry Turner told Patch.

Turner said it’s difficult to know what will come next, but the lack of a contract has implications on the budget where the city expected to save $1 million.

“We already had a $3.5 million budget shortfall, and if we don’t have this million dollar savings, I don’t know where we’re going to get the money,” Turner said.

What does this mean to the average city resident? 

“We're going to be faced with the prospect of personnel cuts and service cuts, which no one will want, or tax increases, which no one could afford,” Turner said. “Those are basic alternatives if we don't pass this ordinance than we have to balance the budget and other things or balance budget by raising taxes.”

Turner said he would not support some of the extreme topics that were tossed around in commission meetings of

Here are other key pension measures that now hang in the balance:

• If the city approved the status quo pension plan (Benevolent Association's recommendation), it would have cost the city nearly $132 million over the next 30 years. No official word on how much the new agreed proposal would save the city
• No change to disability benefits was approved Monday night in the new plan. Employees already retired will not be affected
• Overtime pay limited to 300 hours. This is just what gets counted for pension purposes, not how many hours officers could get paid for
• Decrease in DROP rate from 6.5 percent to 2.5 percent

     • Retirement qualifications remain the same in the agreement, which is 25 years of service or 10 years of service after turning 50 years old