SPRINGFIELD -- Springfield City Council passed a resolution on Thursday night that essentially makes a list of promises to voters if they pass the police and fire pension sales tax in November.  Mayor Jim O'Neal also made his toughest public comments to date about why the city hasn't been able to resolve the pension crisis.

"I don't know what part of city managers school teaches city managers to alienate police and firefighters but it's certainly been in practice here for 50 years," said O'Neal, clearly placing some of the blame on former City Manager Tom Finnie.

The resolution passed by the council included a "no new taxes" pledge, with some exemptions.  The resolution states that council will not seek any other citywide tax proposals for the first five years that the pension tax would be in place.  That pledge exempts the renewal of existing taxes, joint tax ventures with Greene County, and state and federal mandates.

The resolution also says the amount that police and fire employees will pay into the fund will be increased by two percentage points.  A representative with the police union indicated that not all of its members are completely on board with that provision.  That made some council members hesitant to embrace it, but O'Neal said the two sides would meet to find a solution.

O'Neal also placed direct blame on why this hasn't happened before.

"I'd really like to try to clean the slate and say, 'Look, we're here.  We'll meet with you. Mr. Burris' office is open; that's never happened before. My office is open; I don't think that's happened as much as it should of," said O'Neal.

Voters will decide whether to raise the city's sales tax for five years by three-quarters of a percent on Nov. 3.  Voters rejected a proposal for a 1-percent sales tax to fix the pension problem in February.

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O'Neal plans to speak extensively to civic and community groups between now and Nov. 3.  He's already spoken about seven times on the subject.  He predicts, if voters turn down the sales tax on Nov. 3, one or both of the labor unions will sue the city the next day to get a judge to force the city to fully fund the pension fund, which is about $200 million short of what it needs to meet all current and future obligations. 

O'Neal says case history and state law is not on Springfield's side in such a lawsuit.  He says a lawsuit could cost Springfieldians much more than the proposed sales tax, whose cost is shared about 50-50 by tourists and people who don't live in the city.  One outcome, he told Springfield Southeast Rotary Club on Thursday, is the city might be forced to sell City Utilities of Springfield.  That  might solve the pension fund problem but result in substantially higher utility rates because the new owner would have to raise rates to pay back its cost of acquiring CU, in addition to its costs for natural gas, electricity, water and city buses.

O'Neal notes city voters in the 1950s and '60s chose to own and run the police officers and firefighters pension fund rather than putting those employees in the statewide LAGERS pension fund.  Over the decades, city managers have used better retirement benefits as bargaining tools with police and firefighters in lieu of higher pay.  With LAGERs, that negotiating tool would not have been an option and the city would have funded pay increases as it had available revenues.

Another cause of the pension shortfall, O'Neal says, has been the reliance on volunteer fund board members who used actuarial estimates of the fund's growth potential that turned out to be wrong.  LAGERS, he says, is run by professional managers, and that fund has been able to stay healthy through the down periods of the stock market and the economy.

If voters pass the sales tax on Nov. 3, the city's annual costs for police and fire pensions out of general revenue would drop, allowing the city to fill now-frozen and vacant positions in the police department, fire department and other city departments. 

Gene Hartley, KY3 News, contributed to this online report.

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City news release on Sept. 11:

A subcommittee of the Police-Fire Pension Fund Citizens' Task Force has been officially formed to research whether the Tier I police and fire employees can move to the statewide LAGERS pension system if the Nov. 3 sales-tax referendum is approved.

City Manager Greg Burris said the Tier I-to-LAGERS Feasibility Subcommittee is being asked to analyze the feasibility of migrating some or all Tier I Police and Fire employees to the LAGERS retirement system and deliver a report to Police-Fire Pension Fund Citizens' Task Force Chairman Jerry Fenstermaker that documents the analysis process, recommendations, and rationale.

The City Council, in a resolution approved Thursday evening, pledged to enroll new police and fire employees into LAGERS if the Nov. 3 referendum is approved. Tier II employees - those hired after July 1, 2006 with benefits similar to the LAGERS plan - would have the opportunity to voluntarily migrate to LAGERS if that occurs. The issues involving a potential Tier I migration are more complex, however, so the Task Force asked to establish a subcommittee to continue its analysis.

The Task Force is asking the subcommittee to complete its work as quickly as possible, while recognizing that it will take a period of weeks or months to work through the complexities of such a move.

Task Force member Peggy Kubicek will chair the Tier I-to-LAGERS Subcommittee. Other members include:

* Danny Hyde, Citizens' Task Force

· Ken Homan, Citizens' Task force and Chairman of the Police-Fire Retirement System Board of Trustees

· Chad Munsey, Citizens' Task Force

· Fire Captain Shawn Martin, President of the Firefighters Local 152

· Police Lt. Jim McCulloch, representing Police Department leadership

· Fire Battalion Chief John Marion, representing the Fire Department leadership

· Sheila Maerz, Director of Human Resources, representing the City Manager's Office

· Nancy Yendes, Assistant City Attorney

The Springfield Police Officers Association was invited to name a member to the subcommittee, but declined to participate.

The subcommittee meetings will be open to the public. The first meeting has not yet been scheduled. The meeting dates and times will be listed on the City's weekly calendar, available on the City Web site.

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Watch more of O'Neal's direct and comments on the KY3 Political Notebook. 

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