From the Northwest Indiana Times:
About a quarter of a
million dollars in new Lake County income tax revenues would help fund
retirement benefits for solid waste district administrators and staff under a
new proposal, a top district official said.
Meanwhile, a county
commissioner, who backed the new local-option income tax that would provide
this money, said such pensions are not what he believes the new revenues should
be funding.
Lake County Solid
Waste Management District Board Chairman David Hamm said Tuesday that a
committee of board members is making the pension proposal as part of the
district's fiscal year 2014 budget.
Under the proposal,
the entire $249,000 the district is set to receive in 2014 because of the newly
adopted local-option county income tax would go to pensions for the district's
professional staff, including Executive Director Jeff Langbehn, said Hamm, who
also is a Lake County councilman.
Details of the pension
plan being proposed by the committee were not yet available Tuesday, Hamm said.
He expects the committee to report its recommendations at Thursday's solid
waste district board meeting.
"Right now, it's
a committee recommendation," Hamm said. "Nothing is etched in stone,
and it could be changed or amended."
Hamm said a vote was
not scheduled for Thursday on any newly proposed pension plan. He said board
members would have time to digest the committee's recommendation before voting
on it at a future board meeting.
Hamm said he could support
pension benefits for district employees as long is it's not in addition to an
IRA-type plan already offered to the district's professional staff.
...
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