Two members leave pension board

The town of Longboat Key’s new Firefighter Pension Board is not even three months old and it’s already lost two board members.

When the new seven-person board first met May 15, firefighter/paramedic and Longboat Key Fire Rescue District Vice President Keith Tanner didn’t repeat the oath of office and walked out of the meeting after claiming the board went against state statutes.

When the board met again June 12, it lost another member.

Firefighter/paramedic and board member Matt Taylor walked out of the meeting as soon as it started.

“I don’t feel comfortable moving forward with any actions,” Taylor said June 12. “The state is not agreeing with what the town is doing. I don’t feel comfortable being up here.”

It turns out neither one of them feels comfortable sitting on the dais any longer, either.

Town Manager Dave Bullock told the Longboat Observer that he had advised both Taylor and Tanner to let the town know how they planned to proceed by July 18.

Neither Tanner nor Taylor responded to Bullock, which led Bullock to appoint firefighter/paramedic Jason Berzowski to the board to replace Tanner. Bullock has yet to name the other appointment.

The newly reconfigured board consists of five Key residents in addition to the firefighter appointments. Current citizen members are Chairman Gerald Feder, Armando Linde, Shannon Gault, James Pappas and Lee Riley. The board is responsible for overseeing a pension plan that will be frozen Sept. 30.

Approximately $200,000 a year in state subsidy money, dubbed Chapter 175 monies, has been given to the firefighter pension plan for years to help fund firefighter pension benefits. The town must now opt out of those funds to freeze the plan. It’s the belief of some firefighters, though, that their current pension plan has to be frozen before a new board can oversee the plan, and the issue led to Tanner and Taylor’s concerns about being board members.

Town pension attorney James Linn told Taylor the town and the new board are not going against state statues because the town has agreed to no longer accept Chapter 175 funds as it works to freeze the pension plan.

To assuage any concern, Linn also recommended the town approve an emergency ordinance that states the town is freezing the plan and no longer accepting Chapter 175 funds. The commission approved that ordinance in May.

But the ordinance hasn’t made Tanner and Taylor any more comfortable. They continue to point to a May 16 letter the Division of Retirement submitted to the town that questioned the new pension board and the Chapter 175 funds. Linn responded to the state a week later, providing officials with the emergency ordinance and laying out how the town’s actions are consistent as it works to freeze the current pension plan.

“This board has ample legal authority to continue,” Linn said.