Provo to tackle parity issue

PROVO — 'Tis the season for an emergency meeting.

Instead of shopping for day-after deals, the Provo City Council will spend the morning of the day after Christmas in a rare emergency session.

The reason? Over the objections of the mayor and despite an ordinance that prohibits it, the council voted unanimously on Tuesday to increase the city's contribution to the retirement accounts of its police officers.

The council planned to deal with the ordinance, and how to pay for it, after the first of the year, but Mayor Lewis Billings told the council on Thursday that the city's legal department felt it needed to happen before Jan. 1.

What has been known as the parity ordinance was passed in 1983 to bring an end to annual squabbling among city employees about the city's contributions to retirement accounts.

The conflict was caused by three separate retirement programs, one for firefighters, one for police officers and one for the rest of the city's employees.

Most years, the programs required different increases, and some employees complained when other employees got a larger increase.

The parity ordinance required the city to make the same contribution into the retirement accounts of all employees. What the council did is agree to pay the police officers' 9 percent employee contribution at a cost of about $500,000 annually. About half the police force attended Tuesday's council meeting to lay out their case that the parity ordinance has created a disparity between police officers and the rest of the city's employees.

Firefighters and police officers can retire after 20 years with full benefits. Other employees can do so after 30 years. The earlier retirement option for public safety employees created higher contribution increases that, because of the parity ordinance, were passed on to the police officers.

Provo's police officers have been paying 9 percent of their salaries into their retirement accounts. Firefighters have higher rates, too, but the difference is covered by a state tax on homeowner insurance.

The city covers the entire retirement contributions for all other employees. That justifies changing the parity ordinance, council chairman George Stewart said.

"Parity doesn't exist on the employee contribution level. The only employees who have to contribute are public safety employees. We're also having trouble with recruiting and retention of new police officers because we're the only major city in the state and the only one in Utah County" that requires contributions from police employees, he said.