Deana Stroisch
The State Journal-Register
Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin on Thursday called on Mayor Mike Houston to appoint two new members to Springfield’s police pension board who come from outside the police ranks. McMenamin said appointing members from outside the department would allow for “balanced representation.”
“If you don’t, you end up with just a brutal conflict of interest taking place,” he said. “You’ve got the retired and active uniform ranks doing what’s in their monetary self-interest without regard to what the taxpayer point of view is and what’s in the best public interest of the municipality.”
State statute allows the mayor to appoint two members to the unpaid, five-member board. The mayoral appointees are former police chief Don Kliment and former alderman Tom Selinger, who were both originally appointed by Mayor Tim Davlin.
During a press conference he called Thursday, McMenamin also criticized the police pension board for miscalculating pensions. He said the practice has been ongoing since 1999, and has cost taxpayers millions of dollars. “We believe there are serious mistakes, errors, misjudgment, possibly official misconduct have taken place since 1999,” he said. A 2011 audit by the state Department of Insurance found that the board had been miscalculating pensions, among other things.
The state says that a departing 5 percent pay spike for retiring police officers for the sole purpose of boosting their pensions must be divided over a 12-month period instead of being added as a lump sum to the final paycheck. Annualizing the pay increase, which the pension board was doing, violates Illinois’ pension code and incorrectly inflates pensions, according to the state.
In February 2012, the Department of Insurance ordered the Springfield police pension board to change the way it calculates pensions. The pension board has appealed the state’s order to Sangamon County Circuit Court. In the meantime, it didn’t change the way it calculated pensions, prompting the state to request in August that the pension board “cease and desist.”
McMenamin said the 2011 insurance department audit also found “extensive travel” by pension board members to conferences in Hawaii, California, Florida and New Orleans. In one year alone, he said, travel expenses totaled more than $20,000. The audit further found that the board didn’t always post public notice of its meetings as required by the state’s Open Meetings Act, along with “numerous reporting errors” in the board’s filing of its annual statement with the state.
***In the interest of space this article had been edited from the original.
Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 