Eliminate the department? Retirees could lose out
Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott said in an email he estimates he would likely hire about 180 of the police department’s 251 employees; 175 are sworn positions.
In Ft. Myers, Florida, voters will decide on Tuesday whether to disband their police force and contract out with the local sheriff’s department. The fate of payments to Ft. Meyers retirees are up in the air.
Thomas Leonardo, a councilman, asked City Manager Billy Mitchell look into whether the passing of the referendum will trigger immediate payoffs of the cops’ pension plans — which total about $127 million — within one year of election day.
“If that is true, our city will have to declare bankruptcy, which means that everyone’s pension, including yours and mine, will be lost,” Leonardo wrote to Mitchell.
The problem boils down to: is the referendum a consolidation or an elimination of the police department. In most cases across the state, the mergers are consensual, and every individual employed by police departments that merge with larger agencies is absorbed.
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