CRESTVIEW — A report by consultant David Penzone recommends several ways that the city can trim pension costs, which for 2014 are more than $2 million of the city’s $29 million budget.
Funding city employees’ pension benefits represents 27.7 percent of the public safety employee payroll budget and 25.9 percent of the general employee payroll.
During the council's Monday meeting, Penzone, a Pensacola-based consultant, said Crestview's pension situation compares “really well" to other cities, but he made some suggestions to trim costs.
Among Penzone's recommendations are:
•Eliminating overtime when defining employees' salaries, calculating pensions on the workers' base salaries only
•Limiting the maximum retirement benefit to 80 percent of the average final compensation instead of the current 100 percent
•Extending normal and early retirement by five years
While the city should consider making changes by Jan. 1, Penzone said that’s impractical, and suggested phasing in changes by the 2014-15 fiscal year.
Contact News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes at 850-682-6524 or brianh@crestviewbulletin.com. Follow him on Twitter @cnbBrian.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Consultant advising on how to cut Crestview pension costs