Lake Worth Amends Employee Pension Plan

Exorbitant and outlandish Pension Plans throughout the country have hurt thousands of cities and just about all state governments. They all are looking for ways to reduce costs and balance their budgets. Even Miami has cut salaries, health-care and its city's contribution to retirement plans. I make no bones about it...Unions are out of control and the entitlement mentality has to stop.

There are some employees and friends of Unions that just don't get it. They feel that since they entered a Plan that was ridiculously and over-generously advantageous to them at the beginning of their employment, the Plan, therefore, should not change even if it were to bankrupt the city and they would be out of a job. They complain that top management does not have to take a cut but they do, the worker who actually does the hard work within the City.

We had a grounds worker last night, making $10.38 an hour, who was totally outraged even saying the word "shit" a few times. She would not have gotten away with that with Mayor Jeff Clemens. During his tenure, one of our residents from a Pioneer Family said the very same word and was tossed out of the Chamber, police nearby. He was forced to move from Lake Worth because of escalating costs...he could no longer afford to live here. Times have changed. What does her salary equate to when you consider health and retirement benefits, sick pay and personal time such as vacation? A few others spoke but generally the employees remained silent, supposedly "afraid" to speak. The Commission was hoping that more employees would come to the lectern giving them all the sympathy they could muster.

I, on the other hand, was hoping that more Lake Worth taxpayers had shown an interest and had spoken or had even shown up, you know, the guy who pays the tab who was shown no sympathy. Ron Exline, Chair of the Finance Advisory Board, said there was no reason to attend as the Budget had been passed. Little did he know or expect that the Commission would choose a Plan that was not planned for in the Budget and will give us a shortfall. Mary Lindsey was just outraged about everything and talked about internal fear, intimidation, lay-offs, calling it all "unconscionable and unethical." Law suits were mentioned again, something everyone does when they are unhappy.

No doubt about it. The employee IS the lifeblood of any organization. No matter how significant and important an employee may be to any organization, there is always someone to replace him and that someone, if smart and willing to learn, can even be better than the employee who came before him. There are hundreds of thousands of people seeking work. Some have looked for over a year with no luck. Unemployment is 12.2% in Palm Beach County with 72,000 workers out of work. There are plenty of people looking for good jobs with benefits and retirement. So to that employee's wife, perhaps an employee herself, who said that the City will be losing several employees as soon as "you sign this Ordinance," statistics say otherwise--there will be plenty of workers that will love a job with great benefits.

The General Employee Retirement Plan that was chosen by the commission last night (Plan #22) will save city taxpayers $1,404,936. Two employees spoke favorably for this Plan and actually understood Lake Worth's dilemma, one of whom was Valerie Hurley who is a trustee on the Employee Pension Board. Benefits provided in the Current Plan are frozen for all members. The averaging period for calculation will be 5 years up from 2 years and the benefit multiplier will be at 2% instead of 3%. Retirement eligibility is replaced with age 55 with 30 years of service or 65 with 10 years.

The Police Pension Plan was postponed again because the City Manager, could not get together with the Actuary.