OPINION: Ron Littlepage: Let’s hold off on hailing Curry’s grand plan

April 08–Well, we've finally seen the numbers.

They are huge, and they are complicated.

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After Mayor Lenny Curry and his team finished presenting their public employee pension reform plan during a City Council workshop Thursday, several council members acted like puppies having their bellies scratched.

Councilman Reggie Gaffney said he was “amazed and stunned” by how good the plan was.

Slow down.

There are billions of dollars of sales tax revenue and general fund monies at stake here with much of it being foisted off on future generations.

I don't pretend to understand all of the complicated financial and accounting maneuvering that the plan depends on, but it's based on assumptions that could easily turn out to be false.

For example, when the Curry team was selling voters on the idea of approving a new half-cent sales tax that would begin being collected in 2031 with the revenues dedicated solely to paying off the city's pension debt, the team predicted that could happen as early as 2045, thus ending the tax.

During Thursday's presentation, that prediction was moved to five or six years later, which would cost taxpayers $1.5 billion more. And under the law that established the sales tax, it can be collected until 2061 if the pension debt hasn't been wiped out, costing taxpayers additional billions of dollars.

I have great respect for Sam Mousa, Curry's chief administrative officer, and Mike Weinstein, his chief financial officer, who obviously were key players in putting this plan together.

But the plan needs to be thoroughly scrutinized by outside experts to make sure each ramification is understood.

City Council could end up voting on the plan by the end of this month. But that's just not enough time for a complete study.

While Curry may have his way with City Council, there's a large segment of the public that won't be easy to convince, especially when it comes to the benefits that are included in the package.

That's particularly true for police and firefighters, whose pension fund contributed to a majority of the debt. They have to be smiling like Cheshire cats.

For starters, they will get a 3 percent bonus and then 20 percent in raises spaced over three years.

In pitching the plan, Curry's team played every string on the violin: They noted that police and firefighters hadn't had a raise in nine years.

For those in the private sector who worked through the Great Recession, that's a very familiar tune. But a 23 percent bump in pay is sweet music they aren't likely to hear anytime soon.

If the deal is approved, new hires would be placed in a 401(k)-style retirement plan, which is Curry's main goal.

But all of the current police and firefighters and those hired before the plan would take effect on Oct. 1 would remain in the defined benefit pension plan that got us into trouble to begin with.

And that includes keeping the 3 percent annual COLA for retirees and the guaranteed 8.4 percent return on money in DROP accounts.

Those are the two benefits I hear the most complaints about, and they were reduced in the 2015 pension reform agreement, which this deal supersedes.

And police and firefighters even get a new benefit called a “share plan,” which takes money coming from the state that is collected on insurance premiums and can be used to increase benefits for retirees.

Under the 2015 agreement, much of that money was set aside to help pay down the debt. All of this — the benefits, the debt payments — are part of a package that can only be voted up or down by the council.

It may be the best way to go.

It may not be.

But before we can arrive at an answer, the question needs to be thoroughly studied.

ron.littlepage@jacksonville.com (904) 359-4284

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