A.G. Gancarski
In an unsurprising move, the influential Jacksonville Civic Council gave its seal of approval to Mayor Lenny Curry‘s pension reform package on Friday.
The Jacksonville City Council spent much of Thursday in a workshop, where they had the bills explained to them.
The bills — fourteen in all — would implement collective bargaining agreements, establish defined contribution plans for new city employees while giving raises to all of them, and would allow access to a 1/2 cent sales tax that will extend from the sunset of Better Jacksonville Plan debt payoff to 2060.
All of that is necessary, Curry argues, to close the current defined benefits plans to new hires and to put the city on the road to fiscal stability.
And Civic Council chairman Ed Burr, a Curry backer, concurs.
“Mayor Curry’s defined contribution plan is a crucial step toward addressing Jacksonville’s enormous unfunded pension liability,” said Burr, “and we urge our City Council members to support it. The Mayor’s plan will unlock the sales tax revenue approved by a wide margin by voters last August and provide both immediate and long-term benefits to new employees, including portability and greater control of their retirement assets.”
“Since our initial engagement with this issue,” Burr continued, “the Civic Council has consistently advocated for a solution that addresses the city’s unmanageable pension deficit while providing fair and competitive compensation to our valued first responders.”
“Mayor Curry’s pension reform proposals meet those conditions and we congratulate the Mayor and his team and ask City Council members to support the proposals and put our city on the road to financial sustainability at last,” Burr added.
