JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A study just released by the Leroy Collins Institute at Florida State University gives the Jacksonville Police and Fire Pension an "F" grade for being under funded.
An academic team reviewed the pension plans of 208 Florida municipalities and found nearly a third were not as well funded as they should be. The researchers in the study reviewed 2009 financial reports.
The Jacksonville Police and Fire pension, according to the study, had a funding level of 48.80 percent. The city's general employee pension program earned a "C" grade.
Mayor Alvin Brown made pension reform one his three priorities during the campaign. His staff currently is working on the numbers to turn around an unfunded pension liability that tops $1.6 billion.
Ronnie Belton is Brown's Chief Financial Officer and is the point person on pensions. He says numbers are being crunched and there is no timeline on when the administration will roll out its ideas.
"Anytime you see something that is across $1 billion and it is not an asset, you say wow," said Belton who added cities across the country are facing the same pension issues.
Pension reform has been a major issue in Jacksonville with former Mayor John Peyton offering a plan before leaving office that did not get city council approval.
Some of his proposed changes would have increased pension-receivers' years of service from 20 to 25 years. Other changes would have based an employee's final pay for pension purposes on the last five years of work, instead of two years.
Economists when evaluating pensions consider a funding level of 80 percent to be sound.
First Coast News