Who will pay for retired cops’ health care?
The Missouri Supreme Court struck down the St. Louis Police Board’s retiree health care plan yesterday.
The court held that state law which requires the police board to provide health care was violated when retirees were offered a slim benefits package at no charge, but had to pay the group premium rate of $251 a month to get the benefits package received by active duty officers.
This is a big deal for a city with a very tight budget. In February, city residents passed a half cent sales tax increase to meet pension shortfalls, raise officer pay and try to put more officers on the street. But voters weren’t banking on this.
Full disclosure: I served on the Board of Police Commissioners from 1998 to 2001 in my earlier career as a lawyer in St. Louis. Retiree health care costs was a huge issue even then — especially given the number of officers who retire when they still are in their 40s after 20 or so years.
We tried to sort it out in a way that offered a greater benefit to officers who retired with more service — but this made a lot of people unhappy and also resulted in a lawsuit litigated after I was off the board.
State law requires a health care benefit for retired officers — but does not specify the level of benefit. The seven member Supreme Court was divided over this question: What kind of benefit must the police board provide retirees?
Six of justices agreed that the benefit the board had been providing retirees was inadequate as a matter of law.
But three interpreted the law to require the police board to offer retirees, free of charge, a health benefit comparable to what active duty officers receive.
The remaining three justices disagreed. They interpreted state law to mandate a better package than what the police board was offering, but concluded that the statutory language did not require that benefit to be comparable to what active duty officers receive.
Now the police board must find a new balance — something better than what the retirees are receiving now, but without a mandate from a court majority that it be on par with what active officers receive.
No easy task.
Whatever the balance, how do you pay for it?
I could be wrong, but unless the department struck oil beneath Police Headquarters it’s hard to see how the police board can close the gap in a major way without either: (1) reducing the number of officers on the street and using the savings to pay for the enhanced retiree benefit or (2) reducing active officers’ health care benefits to raise the level of coverage for retirees.
(Pictured: St. Louis police officers talk at the scene of the June 23 shooting at 4151 Pleasent Street in North St. Louis. Anthony Souffle|Post-Dispatch)
Eddie Roth writes about education, social justice, public safety, transportation, legal affairs and historic preservation. He joined the Post-Dispatch editorial page in 2008 after six years as an editorial writer with the Dayton Daily News. But he is not new to St. Louis. Eddie grew up in Webster Groves and south St. Louis County. He's a lawyer who for many years practiced with a downtown firm, and was active in civic affairs, including serving a term on the St. Louis Police Board. He and his wife, Jeanne, and their three daughters, Emily, Julia and Alice, live in the Shaw Neighborhood.
When it comes to community organizing, he endorses Quentin Crisp's advice: Rather than keeping up with the Joneses, it's better to pull them down to your level. 
I am not sure why the courts think government and civil service employees should get special treatment with their pensions, when the same courts will allow the private sector employees to have their pensions taken from them or reduced to nothing. Maybe they are thinking of their own pensions. Unfortunately like Social Security these pension plans were set up when the average life expectancy was 70. Pension plans are going to have to re-evaluate for the future. No. of years of service for level of care. Lifetime limits. etc. Unfortunately this is going to cost in officers on the street. I am not saying the officers don’t deserve their pensions, they earned them under the rules established. It just curious that as unusual, civil service employees have a different standard in the courts than those of us in the private sector