Houston firefighters remain opposed to pension changes as bill makes way to House

AUSTIN, Texas – The City of Houston moved a step closer to resolving the long-running employee pension deficit Monday with the introduction of a bill in the Texas House Pensions Committee.

About 100 current and retired firefighters were on hand to comment on the House plan, filling three overflow rooms and providing the majority of the 66 witnesses who signed up for public comment.

Last week, firefighters refused to support a Senate version that they said cut too deeply into retiree benefits.

Speaking of the Senate bill, Capt. Craig Moreau said Monday, “If this plan goes through, I’ll lose half my pension."

Mayor Sylvester Turner fashioned the pension reform plan earlier this year to shrink the city’s $8.1 million pension deficit. It calls for issuing bonds and cutting benefits to police, firefighters and municipal workers to reduce the shortfall by more than $3 billion immediately, and to allow the city to pay down the rest over 30 years.

Firefighters objected to the benefit cuts approved by the Senate bill, and police said a provision tacked on by Sen. Joan Huffman requiring Houston voters to approve selling $1 billion in pension obligation bonds was a deal-breaker. The city is not required to hold a referendum to sell the bonds, and Mayor Turner argued the bonds wouldn’t be new debt, but money owed to the police and municipal workers individual pension funds by the city.

The House bill, released just before the House Pensions Committee took up the issue, is similar to the Senate bill but excludes the referendum requirement.

Representatives for police and municipal workers approved the plan Monday, but firefighters opposed it.

Firefighters contend their pension fund “is only 18 percent of the city’s long-term liability, yet firefighters’ retirements are being asked to pay for 35-40 percent of the city’s total pension debts.”

In spite of that, the chairman of the Houston Firefighters Retirement and Relief Fund, David Keller, told the committee that firefighters and the city have moved closer to an agreement in recent negotiations, but still aren’t in agreement.

“It is problematic to us as laid out. We hope to improve that, and get to a place where we no longer oppose it,” Keller said.

Mayor Turner said the city made significant concessions to firefighters by restoring some of the cuts during negotiations over the weekend. He said that was made possible after the firefighter’s pension board turned over financial data that had not been provided earlier, and became an issue in the earlier Senate hearing.

“We certainly have reassessed the cost,” Mayor Turner said outside the committee room, “and as I indicated, once we had information, if it seemed we had taken more than we needed, we would restore some of the benefits, and we have done this.”

But the mayor cautioned, “The city has gone as far as it can go.”

The firefighters pension board has scheduled a meeting for Wednesday.

Houston Controller Chris Brown says if the legislature doesn’t pass a pension reform bill in the current session, ending May 31, the city will be forced to lay off 10 percent of its workforce, and the pension deficit will grow by another $130 million before the issue can be brought before lawmakers again in two years.

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