DECATUR — Police officers confronted the Decatur city council on Monday asking to be enrolled in the Arkansas Local Police and Fire Retirement System as required by state law and threatening a lawsuit if the city does not comply.

Sergeant Joe Savage, along with police officers Jeannie Yates and Mike Savage and their families, appeared before the council on Monday night representing Decatur’s six full-time officers. They asked to beincluded in the retirement plan, which provides a pension-like pay of up to 86 percent of an officer’s salary after 28 years of service. They also asked for the city to make back payments of premiums so the retirement plan will count all their years of service on the Decatur Police Department.

LOPFI was created to provide retirement coverage for police officers and firefighters and does not extend to civilian personnel. Police officers currently have a 401K retirement system, thesame as all the other city employees, while Decatur firefighters have been enrolled in the LOPFI plan since 1983. Decatur is the only local town, other than Sulphur Springs, that does not provide LOPFI for its police officers, according to city attorney Tom Smith.

Before the meeting, the officers provided council members with the Arkansas code dealing with the matter and an Arkansas Supreme Court finding on a similar case in which the City Of DeWitt was sued by a police officer and the officer won the case after appeal, as well as the Arkansas attorney general's findings on the DeWitt case.

Current law requires that all employers include police and firefighters in the LOPFI plan or offer no retirement plan at all other than Social Security. The current law also requires that if a city joins the plan, it must provide back pay into the plan from the officer's initial hire date unless the city gains special approval from the LOPFI board, but that law is changing on Jan. 1, 2012, so that back pay will not be required - a significant part of the issue for officers and the city.

Mayor Charles Linam recommended that the council offer the LOPFI plan after Jan. 1 so that the city will not have to pay the back-pay, explaining that he considers the officers having back pay “double dipping” since they will benefit from the LOPFI plan and from their current 401K plan into which the citypays 4 percent of each officer’s pay. He also expressed concerns over how the extra expenditures would affect the city budget.

The officers have agreed to turn their 401k money back to the city if they are placed on the LOPFI plan, but it is unclear how that could be done legally since the plan cannot be rolled over and the officers are not eligible to withdraw it, according to Tom Smith.

The city will have to pay 17 percent of the officers' salary into the retirement plan if it does not grant them back pay, but it will have to pay 24 percent into the plan if it does. Either way the state will reimburse the city for 40 percent of the contributions, dramatically decreasing the cost. However, the contribution will still be considerably more than the 4 percent the city currently contributes into all its employees 401K plan.

Joe Savage estimated that the city now pays $2,000 towards each officer’s retirement, which would increase to $5,600 if they were granted LOPFI with back pay, for a total increase of $3,600 per officer each year.

Second Legal Opinion

Linam arranged for the council to have a teleconference with attorney Brian Smith of the Friday, Eldredge and Clark law firm in Little Rock over the matter so he could explain his interpretation of the law to the council.

Brian Smith said the Decatur officers were unlikely to win a lawsuit against the city. He pointed out that the law gives the city the option of offering no retirement plan at all. He recommendedthe city either continue with what they were doing until they were sued or freeze the officer’s current retirement plan and offer no plan other than Social Security.

Brian Smith said the city should not offer the LOPFI plan starting on Jan. 1.

“I do think you are at risk of being in a lawsuit if you freeze where they are at and put them in LOPFI going forward ... You’re gonna do something you don’t have to do and get sued anyway."

Mayor questioned

Joe Savage said the decision on LOPFI should have been made six months ago and that he was led to believe the city would enroll the officers in the plan. He said the deadline for filing the lawsuit under the current lawsuit is Dec. 14, so his lawyer will need to move forward based on thedecisions made Monday.

Council members sharply questioned the mayor as to why they are hearing about this issue only a month before the deadline.

Linam replied that the issue had been discussed between several people at the city over the past months.

Council member Nan Mc-Clain said LOPFI has been on the “city’s horizon” since she was an employee in 2009 and that the city has been in violation of the law since 1983.

“It’s not the officers’ fault this was screwed up,” she said.

Council members agreed that it seemed unfair that police and fire department employees receive a better retirement plan than other city employees and discussed the possibility of improving everyone’s retirement plan.

“There’s no way it’s rightthat we pay police officers 17 percent and the rest of our employees that work just as hard and long 4 percent,” Linam said.

“True, but they put their lives on the line and carry weapons to work,” councilwoman Sandy Duncan replied.

Councilwoman Gina Holt asked Joe Savage why the officers couldn't accept pay from Jan. 1 forward.

“You're asking me to push my retirement back another 10 years,” he replied, explaining that the LOPFI plan requires officers to work for 28 years before they can retire. Joe Savage said that another 10 years would require himto work until he was 65 at a job where he was out on the street, facing criminals that could be half his age and twice his size.

“The only question you have now is to go back or not to go back (with retroactive pay). Is it the exact same as every other employee? No, but that’s how it is in every other city,” said Tom Smith.

The mayor, council members and city attorney agreed they needed more time to research the issue, so it was decided the council will hold a special meeting at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday night to make a final decision before the officer’s attorney was left no option but to file suit.

News, Pages 5 on 11/16/2011