Ballwin Police Seek Pension Changes

In an effort to gain more security with pension payments, Ballwin police have asked city council members to consider allowing law enforcement to join the city’s retirement plan.

Specifically, board members at the council’s last gathering discussed possibly moving police away from a defined-contribution package—a pension plan based on investments, which the department has utilized under one of two financial groups for more than a decade.

“Recently, some of the officers have had some discussions about the fees and the performance of those funds, and I keep hearing the same things about wanting more security,” Glenda Loehr, the city’s finance officer said Wednesday.

Loehr said the police department in 1969 had adopted a defined benefit retirement plan. Under that type of pension, retiree benefits are determined by a formula, which usually accounts for factors such as the number of years worked and the employee’s final or peak salary.

Around 1999, that changed, Loehr said, when the switched to a defined contribution plan under New York-based Oppenheimer Funds and later Lincoln Financial Group, which provided pension benefits for the department since April 2009.

The city’s current pension plan is funded entirely by city contributions, determined based on a percentage of wages, and then placed in individual investment funds chosen by the employees.

“So they kind of manage their own funds,” Loehr said. “Some are better than others … but it’s still up to them where they put the money, and the growth of that money is based on the economy.”

Amid less-than-favorable market conditions, Loehr said, members of the police department now are asking the city council to consider returning their department to a defined benefit plan.

When the city council last met Feb. 13, board members discussed putting police under LAGERS, the Missouri Local Government Employee Retirement System, which provides defined benefit plans for the rest of the city’s employees.

Ald. Frank Fleming suggested a meeting between police and representatives for LAGERS, though City Administrator Bob Kuntz said that may be perceived as a push to switch plans.

“I’m a little concerned that the consequences of an implied endorsement,” Kuntz said.

Fleming disagreed and cited an informal deadline established by council members late last year aimed at finalizing the police department’s pension system by this summer.

“So if we can at least get our Finance and Administration Committee to recommend that, that would at least be a really good start and keep us moving toward this July 1 timeline.”