By: Diane Benjamin
One more note from last night’s Council meeting. Renner lied – how many times does this make? Of course, he wouldn’t even recognize lies anymore.
The topic was Sick Leave Buy Back again. The City policy was changed in 2012 to make any new hires not eligible for this benefit available nowhere else but government. Obviously the City was aware IMRF was going to start charging municipalities extra for employees who spiked their pensions. Renner claimed that current employee policy wasn’t changed in 2012, even though all they had to do was change WHEN the lump sum was paid, because they were afraid of being sued for diminishing pensions. Changing the date would have prevented pension spiking that has now cost taxpayers close to $1.6 million.
Renner went on to explain that the City of Springfield was sued because they changed their policy. Well mayor, that lawsuit wasn’t filed until October of 2015! http://www.sj-r.com/article/20151023/NEWS/151029752
In 2012 Steve Stockton was mayor. David Hales HAD to know NOT changing the policy was going to cost them huge bucks, otherwise they wouldn’t have changed the policy for new employees in 2012. Either Hales was trying to keep the massive payouts a secret or Renner and Hales together stuck their noodles below ground and hoped nobody would find out.
Even is they had been worried about being sued, they choose not defend the change in court for maybe $100,000 – $200,000 in favor of paying out $1.6 million so employees could get a spiked retirement. Your money was thrown away so government employees can have a wonderful retirement.
Springfield is winning the lawsuit. The big losers are once again the taxpayers in Bloomington. If Renner isn’t dumped in February, his lies and taxpayer abuse will continue!
Bloomington’s expensive Springfield lawyer Jeff Jurgens should be embarrassed at being forced to participate in this charade. His comments start at 1:31:00. Just hit play to hear Renner:
Hales did know about the upcoming additional contributions that would need to be made if the sick leave was added to the final months prior to retirement. IMRF sent a memo to all members in 2011 about the change to take affect on Jan. 1, 2012. That memo also said the added expense needed to be reported to the city administration (Council) at the time the employee announced their retirement. If interested, check the IMRF website to find the 2011 memo.
Perhaps Hales is holding out to pad his own retirement account.
I checked. He hasn’t worked enough years to get it.
Actually, Ms. Bell knew how much it would cost the city. As head of HR, she would/should have received the memo too.
Very true! Also, the Council said nothing when the huge check was written.