ST. LOUIS — Aldermen on Friday advanced a plan to reverse a change to the firefighter pensions system adopted years ago to rein in runaway costs.
But they fell one vote short of the 10 they would need overcome a veto from Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, who says it will eventually bite the city in the budget.
“If this passes out of the board, I will be vetoing it,” she said late Friday. “If my veto is overridden, we will be forced to make cuts.”
The bill needs one more round of voting at the board before it hits the mayor’s desk.
The thrust of the legislation from Alderman Bret Narayan, of Dogtown, would return supervision of all firefighter pensions to a board dominated by firefighters. The board would not be able to increase benefits without aldermanic assent and actuarial cost studies. But it would be in charge of hiring the actuaries to do those studies, and could take a more aggressive stance in pushing for new benefits.
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And firefighters, who form one of the city’s most influential unions, have a history of pushing.
For 50 years, they got most anything they wanted when it came to their pension system. Mayors and aldermen approved extra retiree bonuses, funeral subsidies and sick-leave buybacks worth tens of thousands of dollars per retiree. Firefighters were allowed to retire but continue working, drawing salaries and pensions at the same time.
That all stalled after the Great Recession, when stock losses sent pension costs soaring and city officials said they couldn’t afford it anymore. Officials fought the union for months and eventually passed a suite of changes creating a new system with slimmer benefits for younger firefighters and a new oversight board led by City Hall appointees.
Firefighters never fully accepted the changes, have spent the past few years trying to ratchet them back, but have already been denied twice.
Aldermen have twice approved plans to have the old firefighter-majority board govern both the old and new systems. But former Mayor Lyda Krewson vetoed one plan in 2021. And Jones vetoed another last year, saying the change would undermine the landmark reforms and lead to increased costs for taxpayers.
She reiterated those concerns in a letter to aldermen this week.
On Friday, Narayan dismissed concerns as “slippery slope arguments.” He cast his bill as way to give workers more of a voice in their own retirement. He pointed out that firefighters on the board can’t increase costs by themselves. “That’s on the people sitting in these desks in the future,” Narayan said, pointing to his colleagues at the board.
Aldermen Shane Cohn, of Dutchtown, worried about those slippery slopes, though. He recalled the squeeze the city had itself in about a decade ago, when a third of the fire department’s budget went to pension costs, and how hard officials fought to change it.
“I have severe reservations with respect to this,” he said.
He also recalled the extraordinary benefits the older firefighter pension board, which still administers benefits earned before the overhaul, lavished on its employees.
Its former administrator, Vicky Grass, retired in 2015 with a $579,210 cash payout and a $4,800 monthly pension.
If firefighters really just want better representation on the pension board, Cohn said, aldermen should give them more seats on the new board governing the new system.
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