Police and Fire Pension Reform
Delray Beach is about to complete one of the city’s most important changes in years.
It’s the culmination of police and fire pension reform, which began with concessions in the new contracts that reduce the city’s long-term liability. City commissioners also had complained that the pension board was stacked with police and fire representatives in a way that cut out the city, which has been responsible for the board’s investment decisions. City finance officials criticized what they considered subpar returns, which increased the city’s potential payments.
At one point, the city considered leaving the state program through which cities that have police and fire pension plans get money from an assessment on insurance policies. The program imposes what cities correctly believe are union-friendly rules on how cities can use that money. Ultimately, however, the commission took an approach under which Delray Beach can keep collecting that money yet bring that needed accountability.
Rather than a nine-member combined board, there will be five-member boards for police and fire. The union will choose two members, the respective unions will choose two members, and those four will choose the fifth.
More important, the police and fire boards will have to use the same outside professionals – lawyers, actuaries — as the board of the general employees pension fund. In its 2014 statewide survey of local governments, the LeRoy Collins Institute at Florida State University rated Delray’s police-fire pension fund ‘F’ in terms of financial stability – among the state’s worst performers. The Collins Institute rated the general employees fund ‘A.’
In effect, all of Delray Beach’s pension assets will be managed jointly. Mayor Cary Glickstein said those assets amount to roughly $250 million and soon could be leveraged to the city’s benefit. By staying in the state program, Delray Beach will continue to get about $500,000 a year. Yet the city should have more flexibility on how to use that money.
Glickstein told me that the proposal should be ready for second reading at a September commission meeting, to take effect when the budget year starts Oct. 1. As news of this hybrid system has gotten out, Glickstein said, other cities – including Highland Beach – have called for information. With those benefit changes and the new board structure, Delray Beach will have achieved public safety pension reform and addressed the biggest long-term threat to the city’s finances while remaining fair to the people who provide public safety.
“It’s a very creative solution that works for everybody,” Glickstein said. “It happened because enough people were open-minded and willing to try something new. We achieved every objective.”
Greater Boca Raton Beach & Park District Candidates
One comment stood out during last week’s debate among the six candidates for two seats on the board of the Greater Boca Raton Beach & Park District.
It came from Earl Starkoff, who has held the District 3 seat since 2005 and ran unopposed in 2008 and 2012. Starkoff absolved the district’s interim director, Arthur Koski, of any blame for the ongoing dispute between the district and the city over pretty much everything.
No blame at all? Koski isn’t just the interim director, a title that seems silly since he’s been the interim since 2012. Koski is also the district’s attorney and construction manager. The board supposedly sets policy, but Koski has been running the district.
For serving in those multiple roles, Koski has received between $330,000 and $420,000, according to the candidates’ comments. For perspective, the base salary of Florida Atlantic University President John Kelly is $400,000. The district’s budget is about $50 million; FAU’s budget is about $335 million. Meanwhile, Koski runs a law firm in downtown Boca Raton. I will have more about that in the next item.
“I think that the city manager (Leif Ahnell) should be meeting regularly with Mr. Koski,” Starkoff told me on Monday. “Mr. Koski has brought up the difficulty of getting together with anyone from the city. He is told, ‘I have to check back with Leif.’ “
Starkoff wants to schedule three meetings a year between the council, the district board and relevant staff members. Both sides have talked for months about a first such meeting, but one isn’t set. Starkoff also believes that Ahnell and Koski should meet every other week. “There are so many issues to resolve.”
Mayor Susan Haynie, who attended the debate, told me Friday that, while she disagreed with several remarks at the debate, she disagreed most with Starkoff’s comment about Koski. Even board member Dennis Fritsch, who at a recent meeting criticized the city council, said during the debate that “everyone’s to blame” for the stalemate.
The fact that Frisch – the Seat 1 incumbent since 2008 – and Starkoff have drawn four challengers indicates public unhappiness about the standoff. Like Starkoff, Frisch won his seat in 2012 without opposition. Seat 5 incumbent Steven Engel drew no opposition this year, but that seat is for residents of the district who live outside the city. The district’s western boundary is the Florida Turnpike.
The challengers disagree on specifics, but they generally argue that new faces could help to resole the dispute. The best-prepared challengers are Craig Ehrnst in Seat 1 – he lost a city council race in 2014 – and Erin Wright in Seat 3. Shayla Enright in Seat 1 and John Costello in Seat 3 have the right motivation, but they don’t understand the issues as well as Ehrnst and Wright. The Greater Boca Chamber of Commerce has endorsed Ehrnst along with Starkoff.
After the election, the dynamic may improve. In January, Assistant Director Briann Harms – one of the district’s two full-time employees — will become the permanent director. And that’s all she will be.
Chabad East Debacle
In his work as a private lawyer, Koski sued Boca Raton in federal court on behalf of two residents who claimed that the city violated the First Amendment ban on establishment of religion by approving the Chabad East Boca project on East Palmetto Park Road. The city got the lawsuit dismissed last month, but on Friday Koski filed an amended complaint.
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing and couldn’t show harm, since the project hasn’t been built. One plaintiff is from Por La Mar, and the other is from Riviera. Those neighborhoods are closest to where the chabad wants to build.
The core of the plaintiffs’ arguments remains that the city conspired with the chabad to appease residents of Golden Triangle, where the chabad tried to build several years earlier, by helping the congregation find another location. There is less emphasis in the new complaint on the fact that these are Christians seeking to block Jews from building a house of worship and exhibit hall. In seeking to show harm, however, the new complaint has a new twist.
Allowing the chabad, the plaintiffs now claim, would increase the risk of flooding in a “high-hazard coastal area.” The lawsuit notes that Palmetto Park Road is a hurricane evacuation route, and claims that the chabad could make the road hard to navigate.
This supposed harm seems a stretch. The lot in question is less than an acre, and the chabad is less intense than what city rules allow for that area. In addition, the plaintiffs allege that the chabad would upset the “Seaside Village character” of “their paradise,” even though this “paradise” includes a tattoo parlor and other worldly beachside retail outlets.
So consider that when city officials try to work out beach and park district issues with Koski, they are dealing with someone who in this lawsuit accuses Boca Raton of “secret scheming” to aid the chabad. I asked Koski about this dual role when he filed the original lawsuit. His response basically was that he can take any case he wants.
True enough, but it’s like Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz also chairing the Democratic National Committee and blasting out anti-Republican talking points. How does she then work with GOP lawmakers on issues that matter to her South Florida district? The lawsuit is just more noise in the city-district dispute.
What’s up with the Wildflower?
Another topic at the beach and park district debate was the Wildflower property. BocaWatch, which opposes a restaurant on the site, sponsored the debate. So do many who attended the debate.
Not surprisingly, several candidates also expressed their opposition, even though the beach and park district doesn’t own the property and still hasn’t done anything with its 14-acre waterfront site known as Ocean Strand. The Wildflower probably is about two acres.
Also regarding the Wildflower, Boca Raton City Councilman Scott Singer finally made clear his break with the council by saying at the last meeting that the city should “go in a different direction” than a restaurant. The council was voting on whether to place on the November ballot the referendum that seeks to block a restaurant without stating its real intent. Singer has said he may challenge Mayor Susan Haynie in the March election. His shift on the Wildflower had been coming for months.
Towing in Delray
Delray Beach debates a new towing contract at tonight’s city commission meeting – the first after the commission’s summer break.
Though it might not seem like a big deal, towing can be controversial. Some contractors are too quick to tow vehicles. Commissioner Shelly Petrolia raised concerns about one company’s alleged ties to chop shops.
After studying the five companies seeking the three-year, $375,000 contract, a committee has ranked Westway Towing first. The committee included members from several city departments, plus a representative from the Boynton Beach Police Department. In an email, City Manager Don Cooper said he asked for the outside participation “so there could be no accusation of favoritism.”
The contract will apply to calls for towing from the police, code enforcement and environmental services departments and to tows of city vehicles. Cooper said the city expects to get back $95,000 per year from the company that gets the contract. According to the backup material, Westway’s strengths include a large fleet and driver pool and a “robust driver tracking system.” The company also has a dive team that can retrieve submerged vehicles.
