Pension woes continue in Grand Island

Tools

by Lauren Conley

Story Created: Feb 1, 2013 at 7:28 PM CDT

Story Updated: Feb 1, 2013 at 7:57 PM CDT

Grand Island City Council may have reached a decision on the pre-1984 police pension problem. But, now the pension committee is running into issues calculating retired Captain Pete Kortum's pension.

News 5's Lauren Conley was at the police pension committee meeting Friday.

The meeting didn't run as smoothly as some may have hoped. The pension committee, the city and Pete Kortum were supposed to submit annuity quotes Friday.

City Council decided at their last meeting that the remaining pre-'84 officers receive pensions based on a single life annuity.

According to state statute that annuity needs to be calculated on a gender neutral basis.

But, the city says gender neutral annuities can't be bought on the open market.

"Our financial advisor was unable to obtain a quote from an insurance company based on a gender neutral basis. So what we did was we contacted both the pension members, committee members and Pete Kortum's attorney to let them know that we were unable to obtain those quotes," said City Finance Director Jaye Monter.

The city was able to get a gender neutral quote on a later date.
But, City Attorney Bob Sivick said the city wouldn't submit that quote since it was from a different date.

The meeting lasted almost two hours because there was a lot of debate about how to proceed.

City Attorney Bob Sivick says since the annuities can't be bought on a gender neutral basis, that they should do the quotes based on a male.

Kortum's attorney was arguing that's discrimination.

The city of Grand Island never submitted a quote.

They went ahead and took the gender neutral quote the city got on the wrong date and averaged it with the other two quotes. They're going to submit that to city council for approval at the next meeting.

But, it likely won't end there.

Given the circumstance that the quote wasn't actually submitted by the city and it was obtained on a different date than the other two.

On Demand

This content requires the latest Adobe Flash Player and a browser with JavaScript enabled. Click here for a free download of the latest Adobe Flash Player.

Poll

Do you think Dave Heineman should run for U.S. Senate?

  • Yes
  • No

Local Gas Prices

Lowest Gas Prices in Tri-Cities
Nebraska Gas Prices provided by GasBuddy.com

KHASTV on Facebook

Weather Closings