Local News
Aldermanic Vote on Firefighter Pensions Defies Mayor’s Warnings | St. Louis

[ad_1]
click to enlarge ZACHARY LINHARES Mayor Tishaura Jones promises to veto Board Bill 146 that would make changes to the firefighters pension system.
For the past several months, the Board of Aldermen has debated changes to the firefighters pension system that would undo 2013 reforms made to reduce spending. The mayor’s office argues the changes would wreak havoc on the city’s finances.
While the mayor ostensibly counts as allies a majority of the Board of Aldermen, including its president, Board Bill 146, sponsored by Ward 4 Alderman Bret Narayan, passed last Friday with 11 aye votes and 3 opposed. That should be a veto-proof majority.
This bill would “permit the Firemen’s Retirement System Board of Trustees to also act as St. Louis Firefighter’s Retirement Board Plan of Trustees,” according to its verbiage. In essence, the people overseeing the original pension plan that city firefighters were placed on before 2012 could also oversee the city’s current pension plan.
Mayor Tishaura Jones has vowed to veto this bill saying it would take away local control of the firefighter pension system and cause costs to skyrocket.
“I am standing firmly against Board Bill 146 as I believe that eliminating the city’s control over these costs will have drastic consequences for our budget,” Jones said in a statement following the bill’s passage.
St. Louis’ Local 73 firefighters union is supportive of the push for pension change, and nearly every time the bill was discussed, firefighters sat before the board.
The union argues that combining the administration of both retirement systems makes the process less complicated for firefighters and reduces investment risks. They also claim the change would save the city money.
“There would be additional savings by investing the assets of both systems in the same investment vehicles,” the union said in an online statement to members. “With a combined portfolio of $600million, the reduction in management fees would be significant. And when you factor in this aspect, the savings are closer to a million dollars each and every year for the City.”
Jones argues that the city has saved approximately $10 million per year since switching from the old pension system. These savings provided the city with enough funds to increase firefighter pay by 13 percent.
“Board Bill 146 would likely increase the cost of firefighter pensions to 2013 levels when pensions accounted for more than one third of the budget,” Jones said in her statement.
To put the anticipated additional costs into context, 33 percent of the FY24 Fire Department budget would be $32.8 million—$16 million more than current FY24 fire pension costs, Jones said in a letter to the board ahead of the vote.
That $16 million difference is substantial, considering the annual budget needs for parks ($10.6 million), streets ($9.7 million), traffic and lighting ($11.7 million), and forestry services ($9.2 million), according to Jones.
“To eliminate the reforms and revert back to the old system makes it more than hypothetical that
these pension costs would once again take over the City budget,” Jones said. “The City budget is a reflection of hard choices and trade-offs, and if BB 146 becomes law, the City will be forced to anticipate budget cuts to its non-fire pension programs.”
Jones also points out that the bill would take local control of the pensions out of the hands of the city and place it into those of the state legislature.
She cited this part of the bill in her argument:
“Nothing in the Plan shall allow for an amendment to Chapter 4.18 – Firemen’s Retirement
System to be effective without a prior amendment to Chapter 87 of the Revised Statutes of the State of Missouri containing the same language.”
“The City would further be limited in what we are allowed to change about our locally-funded fire pensions by what the state tells us to do–with OUR taxpayers footing the bill,” Jones said.
Jones vetoed a similar plan last year, saying the change would lead to increased costs for taxpayers, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The bill is one of two firefighter pension bills that has gone before the board in recent months.
The other, Board Bill 144, would allow firefighters who have completed 30 years of service before the age of 55 to retire without seeing their benefits reduced.
“We saw that FRS [the old system] had much higher returns on investments for the people in that system,” Narayan said at the bill’s perfection hearing on Feb. 9. “The firefighters have been very outspoken about their desire to have the decisions made by FRS rather than FRP [the new system]. FRP had one of the worst years in history. They took almost a 20 percent beating a couple years back.”
Narayan called claims that the bill would bankrupt the city false and said it was based on a “slippery slope” argument.
The bill received some pushback from the board, including Ward 3 Alderman Shane Cohn.
“It’s really flawed logic to move backwards when we are trying to move our city forward,” Cohn said during the board meeting. “We are trying to be responsible stewards of our city’s financial resources here, and I would ask that folks oppose Board Bill 146.”
With more than two-thirds of the board voting to support the bill, Jones is bracing for aldermen to override her veto.
“If my veto is overridden, we will be forced to make cuts in the city’s budget to prepare to accommodate pension costs that the city’s past experience suggests could be as large as $16 million,” Jones said in her statement.
The bill has been delivered to the mayor and is in a 10-day mandatory waiting period awaiting her signature or her veto. After the waiting period she has an additional 10 days to veto the bill, and if she does, it would return to the board for a vote as a “reconsidered bill” where it must achieve votes from two-thirds of the Board of Alderman to override the veto.
The Board of Alderman would have 90 days to reconsider the bill.
When asked if the mayor is speaking with individual aldermen about the bill, spokesperson for the mayor Conner Kerrigan told RFT:
“We are working hard to see that the veto that we will issue is sustained.”
Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
[ad_2]
Source link
Local News
Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

[ad_1]
A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.
Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.
The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.
The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.
This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.
As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.
Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
[ad_2]
Source link
Local News
Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

[ad_1]
Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.
“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”
He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”
The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”
Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”
The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.
Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”
In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.
“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”
Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”
Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.
“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.
Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)
One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.
Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.
“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”
Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
[ad_2]
Source link
Local News
St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

[ad_1]
The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.
The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.
The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.
The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.
To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/
“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”
Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
[ad_2]
Source link
-
Politics11 months ago
Prenzler ‘reconsidered’ campaign donors, accepts vendor funds
-
Business2 years ago
Fields Foods to open new grocery in Pagedale in March
-
Board Bills2 years ago
2022-2023 Board Bill 168 — City’s Capital Fund
-
Business2 years ago
We Live Here Auténtico! | The Hispanic Chamber | Community and Connection Central
-
Entertainment2 years ago
St.Louis Man Sounds Just Like Whitley Hewsten, Plans on Performing At The Shayfitz Arena.
-
Board Bills6 months ago
2024-2025 Board Bill 80 — Prohibiting Street Takeovers
-
Board Bills2 years ago
2022-2023 Board Bill 189 — Public Works and Improvement Program at the Airport
-
Local News2 years ago
VIDEO: St. Louis Visitor Has Meltdown on TikTok Over Gunshots