St. Louis Lawmakers Pass Firefighter Pension Bill

ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- After seven months of debate and years of discussion, aldermen finally approved today the first comprehensive overhaul of the firefighter retirement system ever to pass through city government.

The bill that passed this morning is the third and last pushed by Mayor Francis Slay. It rolls back years of incremental increases won by firefighters over the past five decades, resulting in greatly reduced pension benefits for new firefighters, plus some cuts to current employees.

Slay's office estimates the changes will save $8 million a year, and keep costs relatively level over the next decade.

The final vote was closer than anticipated. Two aldermen who were expected to vote in favor of the bill missed the meeting, leaving the tally at 17-10, just two over the required 15.

Still, city officials called it historic.

"The board of aldermen took a great step forward," said Sam Dotson, the mayor's operations director. "This is the first time we've taken on the challenge of restructuring benefits. Taxpayers can no longer sustain these types of systems. In order to have a retirement system for firefighters when they retire, we had to have significant changes."

Steve Conway, alderman in the Shaw neighborhood and one of the bill's sponsors, said he'd never seen any bill pass through the board that was opposed by the firefighters. But the mood in chambers wasn't celebratory, he noted.

"Nobody cheered," he said. "It's a somber moment for the city of St. Louis, that we've gotten to this point."

Others, however, charged that the bill was illegal, and would be caught up in court for months, if not years.

"It's going to get thrown out on the basic principal that a city ordinance cannot trump a state statute," said Antonio French, alderman in the O'Fallon Park neighborhoods.

Trustees of the current pension fund, the Firemen's Retirement System of St. Louis, have already filed suit against the mayor's bills. That suit is pending in court, with a ruling on one part expected later this month.

Copyright 2012 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

McClatchy-Tribune News Service