fire truck
Chattanooga’s current fire and police pension quagmire has its roots in 1990s-era reforms aimed at pruning top-heavy management ranks.
Fifteen years ago the Chattanooga Police Department had nearly as many administrators behind desks as officers arresting criminals on the street.
Since police pensions then were capped at 60 percent of a sergeant’s pay – an average of less than $24,000 a year – midlevel managers clung to their jobs, some for as long as 40 years, rather than retire and take big pay cuts.
In an effort to make retirement more attractive, the city launched a two-year public campaign to significantly increase police and firefighter benefits. In a 1999 referendum, city residents voted to do away with the minimum retirement age of 55, base retirement checks on the employee’s three highest years of pay and build in a 3 percent annual cost of living adjustment.
The goal was “about getting a better pension system that would give people the initiative to retire and put the department in a position that we could get more officers,” said former Police Chief Jimmy Dodson, who helped change the pension system. “They deserved to have a better pension, there’s no doubt about it.”