The ailing Dallas Police and Fire Pension System took the bold step Thursday of officially seeking DART sales tax money to shore up the retirement fund.
The ailing Dallas Police and Fire Pension System Board took a bold step Thursday, voting to pursue Dallas Area Rapid Transit agency sales tax money to shore up the retirement fund.
The DART money plan came from Dallas City Councilman Scott Griggs, also a pension board member.
“Currently, city of Dallas residents are subsidizing transportation in the suburbs and that’s why the suburbs can offer much more competitive salaries to police and firefighters than the city of Dallas,” Griggs said. “This is a model similar to what Fort Worth has. Fort Worth has their local option penny split between transportation and public safety. I’m just saying here, let’s split it, also.”
Griggs suggests taking an eighth of the one-cent sales tax DART receives in Dallas now to shift about $38 million a year to the pension fund. Dallas City Councilman Philip Kingston, also a pension board member, supported the DART funding idea along with Griggs.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and DART leaders have strongly opposed the idea, saying it is unfair to hurt the transit agency for pension problems DART did not cause.
But the majority of pension board members said they like the new source of money for the under-funded pension.
The current pension will fall short of promised obligations within 10 years after years of benefits that were more generous than overly optimistic investments could support.
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Two pension board members who are also city council members, voted against the DART money idea, Jennifer Gates and Erik Wilson.
Wilson has already suffered for his opposition. The Dallas Police Association endorsement in the May election went to one of Wilson’s opponents.
Gates accused Griggs and Kingston of pandering for public safety election support by pushing DART funding, which is still a long shot. It would require approval by the Texas Legislature and then city council approval of a Dallas voter referendum that could be held in November.
A bill approved by the Texas House Pension Committee Wednesday to help fix the current pension arrangement would add more money from the city, increase employee pension contributions and reduce benefits.
That plan, House Bill 3158, must still be approved by the full Texas House and Senate and signed by the governor to become law.
And it still has a gap of about $600 million. An included future option to close the funding gap is a so-called “clawback” on future retiree benefits which is strongly opposed by the pension board.
Rawlings has spoken in favor of that option to make retirees shoulder more of the burden. The mayor also wants HB 3158 amendments before the bill is finally approved to reduce future city pension obligations and give the city majority representation of the pension board. City council members have four of the current 12 pension board seats. The pension fund administrator opposes the mayor's proposed changes.
The Texas Legislature created the Dallas Police and Fire Pension and lawmakers must approve solutions to the financial crisis, which is considered a major roadblock to Dallas public safety hiring and retention.
The Dallas Police Department is currently about 400 officers short of the authorized staff of 3,600. A memo to the Dallas city council Friday said the police department expects 360 officers to leave this year and only 200 new officers to be hired and trained.
It costs about $250,000 to hire and train each new officer, according to a letter from a group of retired Dallas Police Officials sent to lawmakers last week.
