How much for TMRS?

I left the city council meeting on Tuesday a bit miffed over a couple of items that zipped right past our city council.

The first was a request by TMRS (Texas Municipal Retirement System) to increase the cities portion of deposits. Now what was said on the floor (and verified through video) was that it was going from 1.8% to 11.8%.  This is percentage of the entire city payroll.

What was meant to be said is that we're going from 11.5% (a max set by the city previously) to 11.81% to 14%.  So basically we will be paying an additional 2.5% of the total payroll of Gonzales into this fund.

Now the general principal of this is not something I'm upset about.  It's a known fact that government jobs come with some perks, and this is one of them.  A retirement that surpasses most businesses by todays standards.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

What does bother me is that Bobby Logan, while making his motions, stated that even though we don't know how much this was going to cost, the percentage seemed small enough, so he made the motion, seconded by Tommy Schurig.  Then Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye and Aye was the vote.

So my question immediately after the meeting to 2 other of the councilmen was, "so did you spend $1,000,000 tonight on TMRS?" The answer from both was "I don't know what we just spent."  The 4th councilman told me today that he also didn't know what we were spending on this proposal. Honestly when I showed him the paperwork he was a bit surprised at the percentages we were talking about.

So here is the problem.  Why would we vote on an matter that you don't know what you're voting on? The appropriate thing to of done would have been to send the city manager back to bring the figures prior to voting.  The issue was not of time sensitive matter, and so tabling it for a month would NOT of been a big deal.  Instead we have approved, some amount, that we don't have a clue how much, to TMRS.

You know if I have to fix my house I don't just call up the contractor and say fix the house.  I ask how much is it going to cost and what's it going to do for me, is it a permanent fix or a quick fix? I don't just hand the contractor a blank check!  Unfortunately those type of questions were not asked, and the city council did write a blank check to TMRS.

The second issue was that of a City Council Retreat.  Not one of the councilmen I spoke with could tell me what this retreat is going to cost for the 7 or so people to run off for the weekend and 'set a vision' for Gonzales.  Again, in a time when were were talking about laying off city employees last time budgets came around, and we're going to spend $1000s for this? Really? This is our priority?

It's time we ask the questions BEFORE we approve stuff. This is how a households get in trouble, and this is how our city is in the shape it's in.  I'm hoping that my pointing out to our councilmen, will in the future, lead to the questions being asked prior to the votes.

So back to TMRS, odds are we need to vote to approve this increase.  Again, as city employees generally expect a better retirement than civilian retirement.  Even Tommy Schurig made the comment that GVEC put in 10% (not 11.81% or 14%) for their retirement.  I think these percentages that were just approved were a bit high, even for city employees, but would sure feel better if we had a clue what this was going to cost us.

Oh, and for the record, I think I have more to rant about tomorrow, so come back and visit again then. 

God Bless
Dennis Nesser