TimK, they will reimburse $90K of $395K -- isn't that the current decision?  Or do I misunderstand?

Tim, I linked to the best information available.  How do you read the "goddamn fucking" articles I linked to?  

The council unanimously voted to support a plan that would pay off about $305,000 in overpayments 108 retired city employees received from the Public Employees Retirement Association.  The city is in line to receive about $395,000 from PERA for excess contributions it made to the fund in the past and will apply a portion of those funds to covering the debt. Alternatively, PERA would have sought repayment from the affected retirees.

So "we pay PERA $305K so retirees don't have to" is how I read that paragraph.  

More explicitly PERA refunds us $395K.  We then pay PERA $305K so that PERA doesn't go after the retirees.  ($305K isn't much in our city budget, but it would have been enough to cover the econonomic development person that the tax hike is paying for.  It's also a good hunk of what we hoped to get by selling the stain glass window a few years ago.  So it's not insubstantial.)

If I'm reading this right, please recognize:  I'm not about starving retirees.  Put a lien on their property which is only collected when the property is sold.  Put a lien on their estate that is only paid after death.  We don't need the money now.  

What information am I missing?  Please help.

Tim, I'm fairly sure you have the numbers backward, even according to this website.

The kneejerks in this thread bug me, and I regret giving them space, but the unanimity of the vote still makes me think I missed something.

A reporter at a local station sent me this PDF, in response to this thread.
WDIO rocks.

Tim -- Giving up is not what I want.  Details and documents.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but it looks to me like "option B" in this chart was approved.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree.  Not the DNT nor the Finance Committee documents support your reading.

Is there a councillor out there who will chime in?

Tim, I read this paragraph, which I pasted above yesterday, as:

"The city is in line to receive about $395,000 from PERA for excess contributions THE CITY made to the fund in the past.  THE CITY will apply a portion of those funds to covering the debt OF THE RETIREES, RANGING FROM LESS THAN $3K to $18K, TOTALLING $305K. Alternatively, PERA would have sought repayment from the affected retirees."

Or, as the DNT story put it:

""I think this is a win-win situation," said Councilor Sharla Gardner. "It makes the retirees whole, it makes current employees whole, and the city still gets $90,000."  Alternatively, the city could have chosen to pocket the entire $395,000, leaving affected retirees to repay the fund on their own."

The city still gets less than 1/4 of the amount due it repaid.  Which is fine -- I would have expected sympathy for the elderly (or a desire not to lose the senior vote) to drive this decision.  But the unanimity on the night that a levy increase is passed is what surprises me.

Thanks for replying, Mayor Ness, and on Christmas, no less.  Thanks, too, for explaining this clearly -- too many folks didn't get it (and possibly couldn't open the council .pdfs on their mobile devices to follow it).

I'm still torn -- I can't imagine any Duluthian I know wouldn't find a $10,000 bill a "bitter pill to swallow," or who wouldn't appreciate $10,000 (or even $1,000) of council relief in their debts, fixed income or not.  So the issues of fairness still strikes me.  But I was at an open house last night where I was in the only married couple with one job per person -- nearly every other couple there had at least three or four jobs between them to make ends meet.  So I am extra conscious of the struggles of my fellow Duluthians.

But your last paragraph seems to suggest that a greater fairness is served by this relief, given the changes in their health care.  

On Christmas Day, I can't argue otherwise.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Oh, Tim, if you keep arguing past Midnight, I'll lose the Christmas spirit.

PERA wins -- they get their overpayments back.

The retirees win -- they don't have to repay their overpayments.

The only way I win is by accepting that the city can do exceptionally nice things to retirees in partial karmic responsibility for changes to their health care plan, even at the cost of increased tax levies of $213,000 next year (or a less robustly solvent reserve, to use the Mayor's more likely example) that would not be warranted if the $305K were paid back.  (That was a mouthful.) 

On Christmas, I'm willing to accept that.