Dallas police, fire pension standstill affecting retirees, new hires

DALLAS - The Dallas Police and Fire Pension Board is struggling to come up with a new pension funding plan.

Retirees have not received a cost of living increase in eight years now, but new hires are also complaining about how much they are contributing to the plan.

With a deadline looming for the city to approve a new pension funding plan, a pension board meeting on Thursday morning revealed little progress.

"I know I've saved some lives, and had mine endangered," said retired Senior Corporal Robert McKlemurry.

This spring, Dallas Police and Fire retirees released a video campaign to make their stories of hardship known.

They have not had a cost of living adjustment or COLA since 2016, despite inflation adding nearly $30 to every $100 spent.

McKlemurry retired in 2017 after serving the city for more than 26 years.

"Now I'm having to start a new career, it causes a lot of stress," he said.

As the Dallas Police and Fire Pension Board urges the city to agree to some sort of COLA for retirees. They also have to balance concerns for newly hired police and firefighters who are grappling with a high contribution rate to the pension as retirement seems like a distant concern.

In an audio feed of the public pension meeting Thursday morning, firefighter trustee Matt Shomer said the Pension Board needs to push for lower contributions.

"I don’t think we can leave it up to the city to do it because they want to.  They are not going to do that," said Shomer. "The active members are bearing the weight of the mistakes made by those who came before them."

"I thought a COLA that someone would have over the rest of their life in retirement was more valuable to the employee. Not saying 13.5% is not a big hit, it is a big hit, and it is hard for employees to pay that, especially with housing prices that they are, grocery prices and gas and all of that," said Kelly Gottschalk, the CEO of Dallas Police and Fire Pension.

Gottschalk also told board members that city council members are not in agreement about offering retirees a COLA.

"The CFO, Mr. Ireland, indicated what he wants is one COLA now, and I think it is so they can say we gave you a COLA, so they can stop saying they haven’t gotten one since 2016. So one COLA now and a stipend later if certain criteria are met," said Gottschalk. "I don’t like those options, the delta on the COLA is big, it is vast."

That leaves retirees, again, in a waiting position.

"To change the rules after the fact, I'm still in shock over it. I've had depression, no doubt about it, trying to figure out what am I going to do now," said McKlemurry.

The city has until the end of the year to approve a new pension funding plan.

The chair of the Ad Hoc Committee canceled this afternoon's meeting because more work needs to be done to get on the same page.

The next meeting is set for May 23.