County Clerk Pam Childers has sent a letter demanding the Escambia County Commissioners immediately repay the contributions she made to the county’s local retirement plan (401a) in the wake of Judge William Stone’s ruling that it was unlawful for them to participate and that the contributions constituted unlawful compensation.
- However, the clerk failed to point out to the media that the judge also determined that other participants had been unlawfully included in the retirement plan, including possibly even some of her employees.
In the 18-page ruling, Judge Stone pointed out the law that granted county commissions the authority to create local retirement plans that were for county personnel who are:
- 50 years of age or older
- with 25 or more years of creditable service.
- Counties may also purchase annuities for up to 5 years of out-of-state service.
Childers needs to review the eligibility of all participants, current and past, and determine whether they met these requirements of Section 121,182, F.S. when they signed up.
But other participants may also need to repay the county because Judge Stone wrote that the law granted the authority only for supplement plans.
He wrote, “The Local Plan acts as a replacement or alternative plan to what is offered through FRS, and therefore, it is not a supplemental plan. The evidence does not show that the County invested funds, purchased annuities, or provided supplemental retirement programs for purposes of providing annuities for county personnel.”
Childers needs to issue a full 401a plan report listing all the ineligible participants and what they owe the county.
Drop Over-the-Top Comments
Whenever Judge Stone ruled about the legality of Escambia County’s 401a retirement plan, we expected whoever won the points of law would gloat some and take a victory lap.
- We knew the county clerk had long had animosity for Commissioner Lumon May that goes back years ( Read “City of Grudges” to understand how such hatred smolders).
- Childers also blames Commissioner Steven Barry for the board firing County Administrator Janet Gilley. Even though she owed her job to Barry, Gilley had been whining about him to Childers and whoever would listen to her for months.
However, County Clerk Pam Childers went over the top when she talked to the Pensacola News Journal, claiming the commissioners had “evil” intentions.
- No one – not the commissioners or all the other ineligible participants – was evil for joining a plan that had been in effect for 24 years. They would not have signed up for it if any of them knew their participation was unlawful.
The clerk needs to come up with a plan to help all the participants withdraw the funds from the unlawful 401a plan, repay the county for the excess contributions, and move their retirements into the Florida Retirement Plan,
No more grandstanding, please.
Here’s a suggestion: Remind the Clerk of her unlawful actions in making those unlawful payments for so many years. She’s personally liable for the amounts unlawfully paid and possibly guilty of repeated second-degree misdemeanors when she willfully and knowingly made those payments after she publicly stated they were illegal/unlawful.
Florida Statute 129.09 states:
“County auditor not to sign illegal warrants.—Any clerk of the circuit court, acting as county auditor, who shall sign any warrant for the payment of any claim or bill or indebtedness against any county funds in excess of the expenditure allowed by law, or county ordinance, or to pay any illegal charge against the county, or to pay any claim against the county not authorized by law, or county ordinance, shall be personally liable for such amount, and if he or she shall sign such warrant willfully and knowingly he or she shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.”
Oh, and did she really demand they repay “immediately”?
If that’s the case, she must have danced around in her Wonder Woman costume over the weekend and lasso’d herself into another golden giddy.
Because during her McKay spot (a theatrical tour de force where she managed to channel Marie Antionette and Marquis de Sade at once), she said that she would provide them with a time frame, after which she would of course–natch, duh–consider it stolen.
Meanwhile, what agency is tasked with pursuing the money from the previous commissioners enrolled? If the judge’s ruling does indeed apply to them as well, is the Clerk gonna go knock on their doors, or pester a prosecutorial agency to do it?
Anybody got the over-under on this epic Clash of the Tar Titans over who can gobble up the most wasted time, bleed the most tax dollars, and bring down the most fall-out on staff–Pam or Edler?
Don’t get me wrong, my money’s on Edler 4-1 in terms of total disaster wrought for personal gain and grandstanding. I’m talking the totality of the losses they have occasioned, cost on morale on staff aside (as always).
What was that she said on Andrew McKay the other morning? That those of us who had been wondering if she hadn’t put herself in some kind of a legal trap were “short on intelligence” and “not too bright”?
Again, the worst thing about all of this is, unlike with Edler, this didn’t HAVE to land in court.
Wouldn’t it have been better for everybody, including the tax payers, if when Alison asked Pam to pursue an opinion from the AG together to get a statement on whether it was legal per the statute, she would have agreed?
Seems like if that had been the path, this issue would have already been decided, any solutions determined and enacted, and it would be in the rearview mirror.
But that wouldn’t have provided nearly as much fodder for the Clerk to post Wonder Woman memes to herself on her own Facebook, would it.
IKYK!!
All I can think about is how many people the combined money Pam Childers and Rayme Edler have conscumed in these court actions combined would have housed and fed for a year. Both of them ought to be ashamed of themselves. Edler doesn’t have that in her, in my opinion. Hopefully Pam will reflect on the mess she has made and start “working with the BCC”–there you go, Kohler–to get it unraveled and move forward. Some way *other* than threatening the commissioners who took the 401a with criminal action on “stolen property”, that is.