Cops make their case for pension increase

By Stephen P. Clark
Staff Writer Article Launched: 08/11/2008 02:38:46 AM EDT

STAMFORD - Living on $900 a month from his police pension, John Braccia had to take a part-time job as a city custodian this summer to stay afloat.

"It got difficult," said the Stamford man, 66, who retired as a city police officer in 1982 after 15 years on the force.

Since then, he's received one pension increase.

"Eventually, I'm going to have to move out of the area or get a full-time job," Braccia said.

He is among 280 police retirees clamoring for a cost of living increase. The last time they got one was 2001, when employees who retired after 1995 received a 4 percent pension increase. Police employees who retired before 1994 haven't gotten an increase since 1999, when they received 3 percent.

"It's really a crime," said Ralph Knapp, president of the Stamford Retired Police Association. "It's not only a crime to the retirees but to the taxpayers of Stamford."

Knapp, who retired in 1984 and gets about $400 a month from his pension, said Stamford and the economy grew, "but the police pension stayed the same."

President of the retired police union since 1995, Knapp said he has sought help twice from Mayor Dannel Malloy, once in the late 1990s and again in 2001. He said he has asked for help from the police pension board and police union presidents continually since he was elected.

They tell him the pension system doesn't have enough money for a payout increase and the union cannot bargain for retirees, Knapp said.

"I've been fighting since Day 1, and we just keep getting knocked down," he said.

There are two ways police retirees can get an increase.

In one, the mayor or the pension board makes a request that is considered by the Board of Finance and Board of Representatives. The requests can be made at any time. But the city Charter allows raises for retirees only when the pension trust is "fully funded on an actuarially sound basis and the adjustments will not impair such funding."

The other way is more complex. The police union contract stipulates that if the pension fund earns enough, pension benefits increase every three years for employees who have reached the age of 62 and retired after 1995. That occurred twice - in 1998 for about a dozen retirees and in 2001 for nearly 30 retirees. Police employees are the only city retirees with that benefit and the only ones who have the city pay all medical insurance costs for officers who retire after age 55.

But police pension officials said the bar is set so high for that benefit to kick in - one bad year for the pension fund after two good ones can doom an increase.

The police pension board is working on its first request for an increase in five years after the union failed to win any improvements for retirees during the last round of negotiations, which ended up in arbitration last year.

"We want to get the retirees a raise," said Lt. Frank Cronin, the police pension board chairman.

Cronin said he had to wait for union negotiations to end before he could start working on the request.

The board, which plans to submit a request by the end of the year, isn't saying how much of an increase it is seeking. Among the factors that must be considered are retirees who have smaller pension payouts because they've been retired longer or because they had shorter careers.

"Invariably, you get sucked in the game where you want to give the lion's share to the longest retirees," Cronin said. "There's an awful lot of inequities in the process. . . . But I don't want to perpetuate this cycle of poverty by not getting the new retirees an increase."

Nearly 300 active officers contribute 7 percent of each paycheck to the pension fund; those contributions plus profits from investments are enough to pay all retirees without help from the city, police pension officials said. As of last month, fund assets totaled about $175 million, which is overfunded by 4 percent or 5 percent, Cronin said. That is down from nearly $185 million a year ago, when it was overfunded by about 12 percent.

Cronin said he wants to get the request in before the police contract expires June 30 to prevent the issue from pitting active officers against retirees.

During the last round of negotiations, the union proposed a half-dozen improvements for future retirees after the city refused to consider any improvements for existing ones. Under state labor law, the city is not required to bargain with the union for retirees.

"There are negotiations, and sometimes things don't work," Cronin said. "The ones who feel it the most are the retirees. They're not forgotten. I haven't forgotten them."

The union president, Sgt. Joseph Kennedy, said he would try to bargain for existing retirees in the next round of negotiations.

"If I can seek anything out for future or current retirees, I have to see where that negotiation leads," said Kennedy, who was not involved in the last round of negotiations.

Cronin said he believes city boards will grant his request.

"This fund has been overfunded for the last 10 years," he said. "We're talking about human beings, men and women, widows and widowers that have given a tremendous amount."

After retiring 26 years ago, Richard Leone, 71, gets about $1,300 a month from his police pension and another $1,300 from Social Security. For 35 years, he has owned a business that paints lines in parking lots and survives on that.

"That was my vehicle out of the police department," he said. "If I didn't have that business, I'd be destitute."

But he's had three severe heart attacks and said he worries about what will happen if he can no longer work.

"If something happens to me, I won't be able to live off the money I'm getting," Leone said.

He said he gave up trying to get a pension increase 15 years ago.

"I don't feel the city cares one way or the other," he said. "To me, trying to get something out of them isn't worth the time or the effort."

But Malloy said he supports an increase for retirees.

"I hope that the contract language and the performance of the pension will deliver an increase to them," he said.

In the 34 years since Harry King retired as a lieutenant, he has gotten a couple of increases to his pension, which is now about $1,100 a month. He also gets more than $900 in Social Security after working as a security guard for Cummings & Lockwood for 13 years. At 93, King said he gets along all right and doesn't expect to live much longer.

Even so, "I'd still like to get a few more bucks," he said.

Beatrice Foreman, 90, receives nearly $1,000 a month from the pension of her late husband, James Foreman, who retired in 1978 after 40 years as a patrolman. She also gets $1,500 per month from her pension after retiring as a Westhill High School teacher in 1976, and $712 in Social Security.

"So far, I'm able to make it. Nothing elaborate but I'm able to make it," she said. "It's not a great deal, but it's a fair living."

Foreman said the infrequent increases are "an insult" to retirees.

"These men laid the foundation for the terrific salaries that the police are getting now," she said. "They should not suffer as a result of not getting compensated as much."

- Staff Writer Stephen P. Clark can be reached at stephen.clark@scni.com or at 964-2264