Angry retirees won concessions from the troubled Dallas Police & Fire Pension Fund Thursday over strong objections from Dallas City Council members who serve on the pension board. All of it is still subject to court approval.
The fund administrator proposed resuming withdrawals from Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) savings accounts, which are currently frozen by a judge, but limiting them to $3,000 a month starting in March.
Retirees complained they need access to their money now.
"There's a lot of us that are going to go under," said police retiree David Elliston. "Houses are going to be put up for sale. Cars are going to be sold. We've built our lives around what we've been getting out of the pension."
A court ruling stopped DROP payments last month in a lawsuit by Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, who sued to stop a run on the fund that threatened to speed a slide to insolvency.
Hundreds of members worried about their savings made large lump sum DROP withdrawals last year, endangering the fund's ability to pay the core retirement pensions all police and fire retirees are also eligible to receive.
"We didn't take money out of the DROP because we had faith in this board to watch out for our welfare," Elliston said.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
Members who left their DROP money in the fund said they are being punished now.
"How are you treating me equal from the people that were allowed to take money and damage the core fund," asked police retiree Julian Bernal.
Four of the 12 pension board members are Dallas City Council members, and all four voted against the new DROP withdrawal plan to preserve core pension benefits.
"Every DROP dollar that goes out the door before the system has a plan to return to solvency is one less dollar that will ultimately be paid to a $1,500 a month beneficiary," said Councilman Philip Kingston. "In order to convince the taxpayers of the city of Dallas to put more money in this bucket, we've got to show that we've plugged the hole."
Pension officials have begun selling assets to raise operating cash.
"The liquidity that this is depending on isn't really there, because we've started selling illiquid assets," said Councilman Scott Griggs.
But employee and retiree members on the board amended the proposed DROP payment plan to include January and February payments and add $6.6 million in large lump sum withdrawal requests that were pending last month when the judge blocked them.
"Let's spread this money out evenly to our entire membership, whether they have monthly requests and or lump sum requests," said Pension Board member Brian Haas, from Dallas Fire-Rescue.
The Pension Board vote was 6 to 5 in favor of the expanded distribution plan, with one police representative siding with the City Council members against it and one retiree board member abstaining.
"Anything extra is not a great idea at this time, does not help the situation," said Councilman Erik Wilson.
The judge in the mayor's lawsuit will decide next week whether to allow the new payment plan.
Current employee participants in the pension fund last month voted down another plan from the Pension Fund to reduce benefits and increase employee contributions that could have helped solve the financial bind.
State lawmakers created the fund, and they've asked Dallas leaders to agree on a plan to fix it. A deal seemed farther away Thursday.
"We don't have a plan in place to save this fund, and it doesn't look like we're going to be able to create one at this point," said Dallas City Councilwoman Jennifer Gates.
