Friday, May 24, 2002
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Friday, May 24, 2002 |
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Early retirement now an option for PTC police and firefighters By JOHN
MUNFORD
Peachtree City now has another tool to recruit and keep police officers and firefighters: a public safety retirement program. The plan, adopted by the City Council last week, will allow them to retire at age 55 without penalty because of the physical demand their jobs entail. To qualify, the employees must have at least 10 years of service with the city. Normally, employees can't qualify for full retirement benefits until they reach the age of 65. The estimated cost of the public safety retirement program is just over $221,000. That number does not include a provision for the city to pay some or all of the retiree's medical coverage based on a sliding scale that factors in length of service. The city would pay 25 percent of the premium for retirees with 10 years of service, jumping to 50 percent for those with 15 years and 75 percent for those with 20 years. Employees with 25 years of service would have their full insurance premium paid by the city. The city currently uses a self-insurance program where it must pay the first $40,000 in medical payments for each covered individual. That runs the total estimated cost for the program to about $300,000, according to finance director Paul Salvatore. Salvatore recommended that the city could fund the cost with the increase in tax revenues from insurance premiums, which amounted to an extra $300,000 this year that was unbudgeted due to the increase in the city's population via the 2000 Census. A number of police officers and firefighters were present at the council meeting and broke into applause after council voted to approve the special retirement plan. The matter has been studied for quite a while, and last year council put $100,000 seed money in the budget to implement the program.
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