City Worker Pension Cuts Under Fire

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - The city of Memphis is gearing up to reduce and restrict pensions for police and fire employees in an effort to save money. But the unions say it is the average citizen who will ending up paying the price.

They are called Memphis' finest. But the Memphis Police Association says proposed changes to the pension plan means attracting less than fine candidates to serve.

Mike Williams, MPA President, stated, "The ultimate ones that are going to suffer are the citizens because they're the taxpayer." Williams says he's already heard officers are heading to Nashville for a recruitment seminar set up there after the proposal was announced.

"We don't want to lower the benefit because of the type of people you attract because you can't get on at other departments," he said. "It's not going to be the type of people citizens deserve."

The city is proposing a decrease in pension payments after retirement and setting the retirement age at 55. Now workers can retire after 25 years, no matter what his or her age.

The unions say the pension system is doing fine and the changes are unnecessary. Councilman Kemp Conrad disagrees.

"We have 500 million dollars in unfunded liability in our pension pan. Basically, past promises that are short sided politicians and union leaders have negotiated that simply cannot be paid."

Conrad says to fully fund the plan would mean increasing taxes by 60 cents. That would equal a tax rate double of Nashville. He says the only option is a decrease in benefits "so people that are retired now or at the end of their career don't wake up one day with a bankruptcy and their pension gets wiped out and they're left with nothing, and that's very, very real."