Four Dallas City Council Members Ask Judge to Take Over Troubled Police and Fire Pension System

Four City Council members have asked a state district judge to appoint an independent administrator to temporarily control the failing Dallas Police and Fire Pension System.Jennifer Staubach Gates, Erik Wilson, Philip Kingston and Scott Griggs, who serve as trustees on the board, filed their petition Wednesday as intervenors in Mayor Mike Rawlings' lawsuit against the pension system. The request of State District Judge Tonya Parker comes at an increasingly messy time. The pension system has been engaged in a slew of court battles while city and state officials are scrambling, without much success, to find a way to save the fund from falling into insolvency within the next decade.Both Rawlings and his four appointees to the 12-member pension board have the same immediate goal: stopping the system from paying out large lump-sum withdrawals that have threatened the fund's stability.Kingston has expressed frustration with mayor's legal tactics and said he believed it was destined for failure. He said the council members' petition, however, gives them the best shot to stabilize the pension system if and until they can agree on a solution to save the pension system."This is a really, really hard deal," Kingston said. "It's hard on everybody. We all want to save the system. We can't really agree on how to do that, and getting some expert advice and particularly some intestinal fortitude from a brave judge might set us on a path for fixing the system."  Continue reading...