Pension Issues

The retirement at CPD actually is horrendous when compared to a lot of surrounding HIGH RISK PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS. The supplemental sounded good and would be a nice benefit if not for the fact that we get almost no C.O.L.A., get only a 2.75% multiplier, get no health insurance afterwards and pay 8% into our pension plan.

The Florida Retirement System gets a 3% multiplier, a higher C.O.L.A., no payment into their pension plan and a modest stipend for health insurance when they retire. Plus, one of the great benefits is to be able to take your time if you decide to move along.

Ask a CPD retiree how much they pay for health insurance for their family and how much that great COLA carries them as the inflation rate percentage triples every single year compared to our meek COLA bump every year. Look at the figures below:


Inflationary rate averages a 4% increase every year. Your health insurance increases at a pace of 15-20% per year. Your COLA increases 1.5% per year.


5 years into your retirement

*Your health insurance premiums have jumped 75-100% higher

*Inflation is up around 20%

*Your great COLA will net you a whopping 7.5%


It doesn't take a financial genius to tell you that if you retire here at CPD you will certainly have to work another job or will have to have invested very wisely during your tenure.


The City Manager and the pension negotiators to be have a chance to make this right with the March referendum. They have the chance, to put on a ballot for vote, the increase of the multiplier to 3-3.25% for HIGH RISK occupations to put it in line with the State average. Unfortunately, they probably won't do the right thing because they just don't give a crap.

While they sleep at night, like normal people can, we will do all of the dirty work the City and the citizens expect from us while making the same multiplier as the IT guy or the Parks and Rec people do. By the way, they may have the highest multiplier for a non Hazardous Duty employee in the State. My Kudos to them for their adept ability to be ahead of the curve.

While I applaud CWA for their retirement multiplier, I have to question when is the last time they put hands on a raging HEP C suspect out of his mind on crack cocaine, wanting to take you to see the maker? Faced off with an armed suicidal subject? Arrested a Roid-raging steroid behemoth? Got spit on? Ummm, never.

The best post I have seen on our forum. So what is it going to take to fix this? If this does not change soon, we might lose some hard working, young officers. I am not one of those "the grass is always greener" people, but economics is pretty simple. I was aware of the sub-standard benefits offered by the city of Clearwater when I took the job. I figured sooner or later, the city would at least bring us up to other local departments. Guess I was wrong. Keep your take home car plan and fix our multiplier!

It was said pretty clearly in the first post.....The City doesn't care...We can scream for the benefits we need, but in the long run, they do not care. Does anyone really think when the "powers that be" sit in the commission meetings, they really care about law enforcement. The only thing they care about is the bottom line and how it works for them. The awful decisions made by them from downtown to the beach nightmare shows what leads the city. For us to think they care about who provides the blanket of security for them while they sleep and dream up more bad ideas is crazy. I think the ideas from the union and officers are great and deserve to be heard, but in the long run......If it came down to contracting our services out to another agency to save money for re-re-re development, don't think for one second the Mayor or City Manager won't jump on it, regardless of how well we do our job.

You don't see any upper management taking a cut, or giving up their car allowances ,or paying for their personal calls on their city cell phones. You can be sure that G.B will be replaced very quickly, rather than city hall sucking it up and doing more with less. How about it Mr. Mayor and Mr. City Manager??? Do part time city commissioners get paid health insurance??