THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 15, 1994 TAG: 9407150026
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
First, Portsmouth City Manager V. Wayne Orton took his lumps for hiring a consultant who told him to cut 35 positions from the municipal payroll to save $2 million. Now Orton has created three new executive positions.
What's wrong with this picture?
Portsmouth faces the same problems as many older cities - an expensive governmental structure designed for another era set atop a tax base that can no longer support it. Efforts to get control of government spending should be applauded, but Portsmouth just keeps enlarging part of its problem: its exceedingly generous retirement system.
The city will need every penny of the savings made by the cuts and more to fund retirement benefits for 34 firefighters and 18 police officers leaving this year. This is in addition to commitments to future retirees and those already retired.
A new retiree, for instance, is Deputy City Manager Roy W. Cherry. At age 49, he will collect $56,700 a year after 23 years on the job. He could collect more than $1.8 million if he lives to be 75 years old, nearly as much as the city says it will save in the entire reduction in force. If his wife survives him, she would collect additional money. That is because Cherry gets the retirement benefits of police and firefighters.
Orton himself is in the same system - even though he never walked a beat - and would stand to collect even more than his deputy. How good is the police and fire retirement system? Well, Sheriff Gary Waters was admitted to the police/fire pension system two weeks ago by the City Council, so he won't have to retire on the less generous state retirement system.
Portsmouth's police/fire pension system pays 60 percent of total pay after 20 years, 70 percent after 25, and 75 percent after 30. That compares to 32 percent of total pay after 25 years in Richmond, 41 percent in Norfolk and 50 percent in Danville. Not surprisingly, the number of Portsmouth police officers and firefighters retiring simultaneously is more than anticipated.
Orton says Portsmouth is ``reshaping, redefining, refocusing, reorganizing, retooling and restructuring. . . . Our goal is to improve our process, at less cost, while not cutting essential services.''
But Portsmouth is already the city with the lowest ratio of police per violent crimes committed in Hampton Roads. Yet, the 18 officers retiring have 500 years of combined experience. The 34 firefighters have 956 years of experience. Fire Chief Donald Newberry Jr. makes no bones about cutting back on fire coverage for the short term. He wants to hire 26 new firefighters by September, but rookies require about four months of training to qualify.
And none of this is to mention financing a costly early retirement for educators, which the state passed in 1991. That retirement package has already taught some municipalities that up-front savings may be short-lived.
The entire RIF has been handled very poorly. The city did not need to go through its entire budget process this spring only to have everything thrown to the wind by the consultant's report that called for eliminating the 35 positions. The city manager and those who report to him are well-paid to make these tough calls.
Clearly, Portsmouth has fiscal problems that a RIF is not going to come anywhere near solving. If the city is to get back on its fiscal feet, it will have to dig a lot deeper than it has done so far. by CNB