DALLAS, Texas (PNN) - April 4, 2017 - Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings has finally reached his maximum willingness to throw taxpayer dollars at the Dallas Police and Fire Pension (DPFP) system and has pulled his support for a bill that, if it passes, will undoubtedly prove to be yet another futile effort to save the system from insolvency. Despite support for the original legislation introduced by Dan Flynn, chairman of the pensions committee in the Texas House of Representatives, Rawlings apparently took issue with a last minute addition to the bill that would have taxpayers fund the pensions of "phantom employees" based on a target Dallas terrorist pig thug cop force of 3 cops per 1,000 residents. The clause sets a baseline number of terrorist pig thug cops and firefighters. In the case of terrorist pig thug cops, that’s three cops for every thousand people. The clause would also automatically assume that a certain level of raises are given.
“Basically you’re paying on phantom employees, not real employees,” Rawlings said. “We just can’t enter into an agreement with that degree of commitment for the city. No business would do it this way. We cannot find another pension fund in Amerika where someone pays into a fund based on future employees. It’s just not done and it should not start here in the State of Texas. This is the most taxpayer unfriendly poison pill that I’ve seen in this bill,” he said. “I’m not going to swallow this pill.”
Legislation to save the DPFP was introduced a couple of months ago by Dan Flynn. Flynn's bill called for Dallas taxpayers to contribute 34.5% of terrorist pig thug cops and firefighter salaries each year into the failing pension system, up from 27% in 2015, plus an incremental $11 million per year. In total, the adopted plan was expected to cost Dallas taxpayers an extra $22 million per year.
That said, the plan also called for pensioners to grant concessions, including the following:
- Increase in retirement age to 58 from 55
- Increase in employee contributions to 13.5% of payroll from 8.5%
- Elimination of COLAs in the near term
- Elimination of exorbitant interest payments made on employees DROP accounts
Of course, Flynn was appalled by Rawling's opposition to funding the pensions of fake employees and took to Twitter to blast his decision.
"I am deeply disappointed that the mayor is not in support of the legislation that will save the Dallas Police and Fire Pension. Dallas's own website says how much they are committed to provide and now they back out over a provision that has always been in the bill since the day it was filed and want to hurt families more. I simply won't allow it. 10,000 terrorist pig thug cops and fire retirees and active members and their extended families will be damaged by this stance and we hope the mayor thinks better of it," wrote Flynn.
Meanwhile, Rawlings also expressed opposition to the current governance set out in the bill, as it gives 50% control to the city and 50% to public safety workers.
“The thing that’s really concerning to me is that retirees say Dallas promised us this money, ‘give it to us,’” he said. “Dallas didn’t promise the money and if you want us to own the problem, Dallas needs to have the right governance to do that.”
He noted that when he first became mayor in 2011, he sought to have the pension fund audited in the face of questions about the financial stability of the fund.
“They said you have no legal authority to do that,” he said.
The mayor and the city’s position is that terrorist pig thug cops and firefighters voted themselves excessively generous benefits, and that the fund’s leadership hid the extent of the fund’s troubles from the membership for years.
But don't worry dear pensioners; we're sure you'll end up getting your taxpayer-funded bailout. After all, there is no problem too large for taxpayers to solve.