JOPLIN, Mo. — A Joplin firefighter who resigned from the Police and Firemen’s Pension Fund board during a recent closed discussion said he did so because the board passed up what he viewed as an opportunity to settle a lawsuit involving disability pay calculation.

Tim Woodward, a battalion chief, said he believes he has evidence that members of the pension fund were never told that previous changes to the fund’s benefits would result in reduced benefits.

Disability pay calculations are the subject of a lawsuit filed in July by a former Fire Department driver-engineer, Tom Robertson, who suffered a duty-related lung illness.

Robertson earlier this year appealed to the board to reverse a calculation that reduced his monthly benefit, but the board declined. The vote was not unanimous. Board member William Kean voted against declining to change the calculation.

Robertson thought he would be entitled to half the average pay he earned when he worked, or about $1,900 a month. But the city calculated his benefit at 37.5 percent of his average pay, making his monthly payment about $1,400.

The pension board was told that under revisions in 1993 that allowed retirement at 20 years from the police and fire departments, disability pay was reduced by the number of years served less than 20.

Robertson’s attorney, Dan Tobben, of St. Louis, discussed the issue with the board before a lawsuit was filed. He contended that those covered by the plan did not authorize changes to the plan that reduced benefits.

Woodward said he researched the issue himself and presented the findings to the board during a recent closed meeting. The board closed the meeting citing an exemption in the open-meetings law regarding litigation.

“There’s sufficient evidence, and I presented sufficient evidence that shows there was never any authorized change to calculating disability benefits,” Woodward said. “There was never discussion by any previous boards to do that. There was never any ballot that indicated any such change. There was never a vote. And yet Mr. Head maintained it was authorized to change that disability calculation.”

Brian Head, Joplin’s city attorney who under the city charter serves as an adviser to the pension board, disagreed with Woodward’s contention. He said the membership had to know about the change because the disability calculation is spelled out in city ordinances.

“I can’t tell you what I talked about in the closed session, but in the hearings we had (in earlier months), I said it may have been an unintended consequence of the language in the 1993 vote,” Head said.

“We don’t know what the people in 1993 understood or said, but we know what they did. We know the language that was voted on. We know the actual language because it’s in the ordinance” that establishes the disability calculation, Head said.

None of the other pension board members could be reached last week to comment on the issue.

The board, said Woodward, “had a golden opportunity to settle the issue.”

He said that either way a court decision goes, it will cost the pension fund and ultimately those covered by the fund and Joplin taxpayers the costs of the lawsuit and any resulting decision.

“Basically in the end, the issue that upset me was that the board had the authority and the opportunity to fix this situation,” Woodward said. “It could have ended the suit. It could have saved the pension (fund) and the city a bunch of wasted money, and it could have saved a vital benefit that would take care of a police officer or a firefighter if they were to get hurt on the job.” The benefit won’t be enough to take care of the emergency workers injured on the job, he said.

Head disputed Woodward’s assertion.

“The pension is only one portion of the benefit an injured police office or firefighter receives,” he said. “There’s the workers’ compensation portion too.”

As for any proposal to settle to save costs to the fund, Head said Woodward’s suggested fix would cost the plan too.

“I understand Tim’s contention, but we’re in court because a judge is going to tell us whether or not we construed that language properly,” Head said of the dispute.

The lawsuit is in the early stages of seeking information, and no hearing dates have been set, according to online court records.

Firefighter

Tim Woodward has worked as a firefighter for 19 1/2 years and has served twice on the pension board, last being appointed in 2007.