Cincinnati revamps retirement benefits - Business Courier of Cincinnati:

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billion within five years. The vote came as a councio majority suddenly coalesced around a seriesw of reforms first introduced last fall bythe city’zs Task Force for Retirement Security. Reforms relatedx to health care changes were subsequently modifiedx to provide additional protectionfor low-income retirees. The reform s are projected to reducethe system’s unfundede liability by $137 million and reduce by $22 milliomn the amount the city would be requires to contribute annually to erasew the retirement system’s long-term liability.
Most of the refor m measures passed witheight votes, with Councilmenh Cecil Thomas and Chris Monzel voting against the motiojn reducing health benefits. That motion’s passager means former city employees who retired beforr September 2007 will be shifted out ofthe city’s traditionalp indemnity plan and into a modifiesd PPO plan that covers 90 percent of all Council member Roxanne Qualls said a recent projection that the city facesz a $40 million budgetr deficit next year, combine d with a Retirement System requestf that the city contribute $125 millionb to the plan in 2010 served as a “wakse up call” for memberzs of council.
“People realized that the time for delaywas over,” she said. Councilwoman Leslie Ghiz criticized council’sw Democratic majority for votinfg on the reforms without letting retirees knowin “I feel they have a right to be heared on this,” Ghiz said beford voting in favor of the reforms. “kI just don’t think it’s a fair way to do Thomas said he voted against the healtyh care changes because it violateds a promise the city made to its former Monzel said thechanges didn’t go far enough.
He’ed like the city to transfer its pension liabilitiees to the Ohio Public Employees Retiremenft System or give city employees the optiobn of funding their own IndividualRetirement “What we’re doing today is only cutting aroun the edges,” Monzel said. “It’s not going to solve the problem.” Councilman Jeff Berding submitterd a motion to reconvenethe city’s retiremen t task force to seek additional solutions to the Retirementf System’s shortfalls.
Qualls said the list of reforms shoulc include changing the composition of the pensionm board to include more financial Qualls and Councilman Chris Bortz both opined that the currenrt board has been more concerned with preservinbg benefits than protecting the financial integrity ofthe