Published: November 19, 2009 09:48 pm      

Huntington mayor relieved by police, fire pension bill approval

CHARLESTON — A look of relief spread across Huntington Mayor Kim Wolfe’s face, and that was understandable.

With his riverfront city on the brink of bankruptcy, lawmakers Thursday enacted a bailout plan to keep money flowing into troubled police and fire pensions without taking an extra bite out of taxpayers.

At the same time, the long-worked measure devises a fresh plan for new hires to be supervised by the Consolidated Public Retirement Board.

Wolfe watched the final vote Thursday from a gallery in the House of Delegates, a 93-3 tally. Senators approved it unanimously a day earlier.

For months, Sen. Dan Foster, D-Kanawha, head of the Senate Pensions Committee, headed up a team of negotiators tasked with finding a solution to the pension funds that are in trouble in 50-some cities. Others, such as Beckley, are experiencing no difficulties in managing municipal pensions.

What came out — and attracted the Legislature’s approval — was a plan to let cities voluntarily amortize existing funds over a 40-year period, with no new tax revenues poured in.

“Relief is my biggest reaction,” Wolfe told reporters outside the House chamber.

Wolfe applauded Foster and all the stakeholders. “It’s just a combination of a lot of people working together to find a solution and quit kicking the can down the road,” the mayor said.

Wolfe said there was “no windfall of money” built into the plan, but it gives cities such as his the opportunity to pay down debts on a level basis.

“So we can put our priorities in and not be concerned about whether to go into receivership,” the former Cabell County sheriff said. “The last thing I wanted to do was cut vital services of police and fire to our citizens. This allows us to put our priorities in order and help the city grow.”

Wolfe saluted firefighters and police officers for signing on, even though “this system is not as lucrative as what they had before.”

Leaner pension checks likely won’t affect efforts to recruit replacements in the police and fire units, the mayor said. “It’s not a bad pension,” he said. “It’s a pretty good pension.”

The bill became dubbed the Huntington Plan in deference to its dubious distinction of suffering the heaviest red ink in pension accounts. “This is the right decision,” Wolfe said of the bill, now on its way to Gov. Joe Manchin.

Manchin had promised him early on to put the bill on a special session call this month if he could guarantee that police and fire units were on board and there were no new taxes at stake, Wolfe said.

“He kept his word,” the mayor said. “We worked to keep our end of the bargain. I thank a lot of people who worked on this.”