Fayette County’s government has turned to a former county commissioner to determine the best retirement system for its employees.

Scott Burrell, who served as a commissioner from 1995 to 1998, is part of a committee chaired by attorney John Kimball that is looking at the county’s retirement package. Also on the committee is Water Director Tony Parrott, Personnel Director Connie Boehnke, Sheriff Randall Johnson and Finance Director Mary Holland.

Burrell is president of Pacific General Financial in Fayetteville, which is an insurance and financial services company.

Burrell remembers what bad shape the county’s retirement plan was in a decade ago.

“When we looked at the pension plan 10 years ago, it had a small amount of money in it, just over $3 million. Now, it has over $40 million,” he said.

Currently, the county’s system mimics a 401k pension plan, where an employee contributes a portion of salary, and the county will match up to 4 percent of the salary. After the county switched to a more aggressive plan, it was never looked at again.

But in the last decade, the county has lost many employees in public safety, said Burrell, because the retirements system is not comparable with other government plans.

“I heard that it’s cost the county about $3 million in turnover during the last five years for public safety employees,” he said.

What’s happening is that many people will come to work for Fayette County, get trained, and then leave.

“It’s just not where you want to stay,” he said.

The committee is studying several options, including a defined benefit retirement. Many large corporations are going away from defined benefits because of the costs, but Burrell said comparing governments and corporations is not a fair comparison.

The committee is working towards a Sept. 1 deadline to have a report ready for the County Commission.

Burrell dismissed any ideas that he was looking for personal gain from his participation on the committee.

“I don’t even do government pensions. I just want to make sure the county’s employees have the best benefits possible,” he said.

Burrell lost to Greg Dunn in the GOP primary in July 1998.

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