The City of Pensacola has 2008 estimated population of 53,820. The two Florida cities that are closest in populations are Bradenton (53,513) and Margate (54,086).
Bradenton has a blended system. General employees are in the Florida Retirement System (FRS). Fire and Police have pension funds.
Total cost $3.9 million, 542 employees, cost per employee: $7,118.
Margate is straight FRS. Total cost $4.9 million, 608 employees, cost per employee: $8,091.
Popularity: 31% [?]
James, what Chris has failed to mention is that IF we were in the FRS now the City would have to pay the State 22% of payroll, and that figure fluxuates based on the market. IF the City had not stolen our money and refused to pay it back until mandated by the federal government they would be contributing around 17% of payroll this year. Fortunately they will have it payed back by 2013 and the cost to us and the taxpayer will begin to decrease to a level below that required by the FRS.
Second- our pension has remained consistantly the best funded and most actuarrily(sp) sound pension of all the plans. Look at the unfunded liability of the general fund that was less than $500,000 ten years ago is $20,000,000.00 today (I did not put too many zeros in it). And has a funded rate of about 56% where ours is over 85% even with the market downturn.
Third-we do not pay and the City does not match anything into Social Security for us. This is the only pension we have. We cannot fall back on our rich uncle the federal government for our living after retirement, we are on our own.
It is convenient to make our pension plan out to be the problem simply because the City cannot get its grubby hands on our money, about $75,000,000.00 today. Gosh, that would be enough to fund their pet project for Studer and pay the debt on the general fund that the finance director, who is appointed, not elected, has seemed to screw into the ground. PASS THE BUCK PLEASE!!
Sorry for rambling Rick.
Chris — aren’t you pushing the city to pay your members longevity when council stopped it for everyone? Aren’t you going to arbitration over that issue? Would your union go to the legislature and agree to rescind the special act that created your pension in exchange for a switch to FRS?
Anonymoose- I totally agree with you. I wish our pension costs weren’t that much. I wish I had the pension the FRS offers. I wish I did not have to contribute 11% of my pay when it would be 0% with the FRS. I wish I had the same benefits as bradenton and margate, but wishing doesn’t get you anywhere. As a reminder the city misappropriated our pension money to buy all this property they call parks, low income housing and now its our fault. We are not asking for a pay raise or more benefits, we asking for the manpower we need to do our job.
Chris, I think you have to forgive people for being skeptical of why that is happening. The primary reason for that problem can be traced back to the same problems GM had with unions driving up overhead costs (read: pensions) to the point that they were no longer an automobile manufacturer they were a benefits company. I think your message would travel further if pensions for firefighters were’t costing the taxpayers as much. Maybe with the savings on pensions we could hire more firefighters and purchase more equipment.
Here is a note to add on cutting services….Today is the first day in the 200 year history of the pensacola fire department that if a major incident happened, there would not be enough personnel left to cover a simple incident. We would have to call the county and the navy for help and thats if they are available. It amazes me that the governments first responsibilty is to protect my family and the first thing they do is to cut police and fire. Citizens of pensacola be prepared for not having the help you need because the city has decided other things are more important than your family.
Anonymoose — you’re right about general employees in FRS. They could not be forced to switch to FRS. The state requires that employees be given an option. But at least there’s an end in sight. It wouldn’t take action by state legislation to switch police officers to FRS, but it would firefighters. The police pension plan is governed by ordinance. The firefighter’s plan is a special act of the legislature.
James, I believe half of the city employees opted into FRS. The rest are still in the general pension, which is partly to blame for the pension problems. I don’t think they can force them into it for some reason. As for police and fire, I hear it’s even more complicated than what you’ve described. My understanding is that in order to make any changes in the fire and police pensions, it would require action by state legislation.
Don’t forget that you probably should not count employees in ESP or the airport. Those two cities do not have either of those departments and those two departments are revenue generating departments, which actually keep your taxes lower. Trying to compare the two cities is very difficult as they offer completely different services. Back out the employees from ESP and the airport and I would bet they are about the same.
Anonymouse — I was responding to the post from jeeperman who said there were too many employees working for the city. I think anon addressed the issue of why the number of employees varies from city to city, regardless of size. The city already switched to FRS about 2 1/2 years ago for all employees other than police & fire. The fire pension was created by a special act of the legislature so can’t be easily converted to FRS without the agreement of the firefighter’s union. If the city changes to FRS for police & fire, they will lose state money. It might be worth it, or it might not. Someone needs to crunch the numbers.
Bradenton’s website shows 10 Parks-Pensacola has more than 90. Their library system is run by the County. They don’t have a Port or an Airport. Fire Department and Police Department are considerably smaller than Pensacola’s. Makes sense. Smaller land area means fewer people can cover it. They have 3 fire stations vs 6 in Pensacola. Bradenton does own the water/sewage utility.
We could eliminate the charitable contributions that the city is doling out to their favorite charities even as they talk about cuts to services.
How do you get in line for those handouts? Ask the council.
James, on a side note, I did get your point that Pensacola MAY have an appropriate number of employees, it’s sometimes hard to follow the discussion on these blogs. Please consider my statement above as an addendum to your response to Jeeperman.
You need to look at what each city provides. Do they have a Natural Gas Department? Do they have a Regional Airport? Do they have a Library? Do they have a Housing Department? If not, then you need to back out those departments’ number of employees and cost of pensions before you make a comparison with other cities.
James, that’s what it comes down to, huh? Our pension costs are too high so we have to eliminate services? Or, our council could give employees the option of moving over to the FRS or self-funding their retirement savings elsewhere. The city could still provide the services and replace the pensions with a less costly defined contribution system.
What are the real nuts and bolts of services that each city provides? I doubt that Pensacola is providing additional services to the citizens that it would require twice as many employees as the Bradenton. 18 square miles of city is very near the 15 of Bradenton, so why so many governement jobs?
One thing worth noting in the comparison; according to Wikipedia (which is usually correct about this kind of thing), the two cities that we are comparing to are, area-wise, significantly smaller than Pensacola. Area-wise, Pensacola covers almost 40 miles (22 of which is land) while the others are 15 miles (Bradenton) and 9 miles (Margate). The population density of Bradenton is nearly twice that of P’cola and for Margate it’s nearly three times as dense, though the large amount of area in Pensacola that is covered with water may play a part in the density differences. But, based on the proposition that it’s easier to serve people if they are closer together, this may account for some of the differences we see between their cities and our city.
That said, it seems that most of the other measures are similar to those of Pensacola. Per-capita income, demographics, etc, are not all that different from ours. I find it difficult to believe that running our city requires that much more in the way of people and money just because of the size. When you subtract the parts of Pensacola that are covered in water, we’re only 7 miles larger than Bradenton. Maybe the reason we have to provide such mammoth pensions is that it’s just easier to convince people to move to South Florida. Just thinking out loud here.
I agree with anon that we would need to look at each and every service offered to make a valid comparison, however, let’s suppose for the sake of argument that they offer significantly fewer or at least significantly reduced services in those two cities…is the quality of life in those places reduced by the same magnitude? I would be curious to know how the citizens rate the city on issues like crime, appearance, and provision of basic services.
Ya think this is why they’re in a hurry to consolidate? Chasing the money…
You have to compare what services are offered by each City in order to make this a valid comparison. Every time the City has talked about cutting back on services (read that as reduction in headcount)citizens come out in droves to tell Council how bad things will be without that particular service. Council does the predictable thing and backs off the service reductions. You can’t reduce headcount without reducing services.
If you think there are too many city employees, tell the city council what services you want to see reduced or eliminated.
jeep not, you got that assessement from my post above? REALLY?
So the City has 850 employees today?? I bet population is down to 50k and the cost of pension per employee is up to $15k too.
Still not acceptable. To much fat ($$) for what work is accomplished. Way to many employees and how long does it take to get anything done or answered by city staff?
The city doesn’t have 1000 employees today. They’ve cut their staff down to about 850.
and jeeperman, you like the council manager form of government and the number of employees it has? hmmmmmmmmmmm!?!?
Yea, now tell us how many county employees there are that overlap into each of these cities. Pensacola needs almost double the employees per capita why? Do the employees of Pensacola do a half assed job therefore twice as many are needed ??
Twice as many employees and yet the city has to hire contractors to put up Christmas decorations ???
It appears that the city of pensacola is over hiring and employing too many people. Almost 1,000 employees when compared to these other two cities, pensacola is close to double. Clean house and only employ what the city actually needs.