A proposal for the city to pay an extra $950,000 into the Police and Firemen’s Pension Fund and to change benefits for new employees is a step in the right direction toward correcting underfunding of the plan, the board’s attorney said Tuesday.
City Manager Mark Rohr made the proposal at a meeting of the board attended by a number of firefighters and police officers whose retirement savings and benefits are covered by the plan.
The city is trying to avert the potential of a lawsuit over underfunding, which Dan Tobben of St. Louis, an attorney for the board, has said could be brought for at least $2 million of the plan’s $16 million shortfall.
Rohr put together a committee of police officers, firefighters and city staff that studied the issues in a series of meetings starting in November and recommended a plan that would leave benefits the same for current employees but change the benefits offered to new hires if the plan’s members and the City Council agreed on its adoption.
Tobben told those at the meeting that the proposal that was advanced is a start toward making the plan solvent.
For more on the issue, see Wednesday editions of The Globe.
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<img src="http://www.joplinglobeonline.com/images/zope/policeandfire.gif" border=0 > 2:00 p.m. Pension board to consider proposal to shore up plan
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