This past weekend the City Scheduled two impromptu meetings for our firefighter’s three year contract. The meetings were added to the calendar on Monday, a holiday. This brings up the question: Did the city provide enough public notice of this meeting? During both these meetings the City stated they wanted the firefighters to sign over their 175 money.
If you recall during the one year negotiations, no one from the city sat at the table with the firefighters. During both these meetings Human Resource and Workforce Development Director, Rob McGarrah, was present. The 175 money was first mentioned at the end of the first impromptu meeting (meeting 7). Then the city approached the topic at the meeting the next day (meeting 8) also.
*Read more about Rob McGarrah here: The OPE: Three City Employees Simultaneously Receive Salary And Pension
Basic Understanding And Our History of The 175 Money
FloridaCapitalTea researched the 175 money in order to have a better understanding of it and why the City is asking for the money. Florida created statute 175 in 1939 to provide incentives in retirement plans for the firefighters. Since then, it has seen many amendments and changes to make it what it is today. In early 2000’s an amendment was signed which stated that the 175 money has to go to firefighters. Prior to this amendment being signed, the City of Tallahassee was using this money to offset their own costs instead of giving the money to the firefighters, as intended. The City of Tallahassee did not want to give to money to the firefighters and the state had to set a deadline. The deadline stated that the money goes to the firefighters or no one receives it. In the beginning, the City was comfortable with neither party receiving the money. It wasn’t until someone stepped in with a compromise that they agreed to delegate it to the firefighters. The first year the city received 100% of the funds, the second year the city received 50% and the third year it all went to the firefighter.
The Tallahassee Firefighters 175 money structure: Essentially, after 5 years of service, our firefighters start to receive shares from the State (City does not contribute anything). Over the course of their careers, they will receive more shares. By the time they reach retirement, many of them have an additional $160,000-$200,000 after interest.
The Reason The City Is Asking For This Benefit
The city is asking our firefighters to sign over this money from the state in order to reduce the pension contribution cost. While this money can be assigned to the City to manage, it is not a common bargaining tool in negotiations with fire departments.
If our firefighters accepted this offer, they would only be taking home a couple hundred extra a month. they wouldn’t have any guarantee that the pension contribution percentage wouldn’t increase again.
The Union leader stated that the union body would be upset with this offer. So, we took an average employee who has worked for the department about 10 years. We did the math for us to see an idea of what our firefighters would be giving up.
A 10 year employee making about $2,300 a paycheck would only take home about an additional $118 a paycheck, or $3,066 a year. If they worked another 15 years before they retired, with no raises and no change in pension contributions, they would only take home about $43,000. They would lose the rest, which is about $160,000- $200,000. Also note that this money is in shares which have the ability to grow.
The Impact
The City knows that this 175 money is growing. They express wanting to rush this negotiation to completion in an attempt to settle it before the one year contract is settled. This is why we are slow to respond when someone wants to rush us.
While the city states they want to use it to reduce pension contributions, we won’t look at intent. Instead we will look at the impact and their past actions. Last year’s contract they illustrated time after time an unwillingness to negotiate in good faith. They have repeatedly told us, the people of Tallahassee, inaccurate information. The City has outright lied to us about a number of things.
Even a diseased tree can produce fruit, it’s just bad fruit. The fruit of the city has been confusion. Sowing discourse in our neighborhoods and government. Even now the city spreads its disease through their offers to our firefighters. This leaves our brave men and women dejected, without hope for an honest government, and struggling to live in a city they love.
With all this bad fruit, our firefighters show us some good fruit. They are more unified than they have ever been before. Better, stronger, and louder together.
“Successful negotiation is not about getting to ‘yes’; it’s about mastering ‘no’ and understanding what the path to an agreement is.”
-Christopher Voss
*This information is still developing and we will update information on the 175 money as we obtain it
