The Metro Council rejected a proposal at its meeting Wednesday evening to place a 90-day moratorium on the rehiring of retired city-parish employees to provide time to create a new policy.
The proposal by Metro Councilwoman Donna Collins-Lewis failed in a 5-3 vote, with three council members abstaining. Collins-Lewis has argued that the retire/rehire policy hinders career advancement for employees and efforts to attract outside talent. Reached this morning, the councilwoman says she will continue pursuing changes to the policy.
“I’m disappointed,” Collins-Lewis says. “The moratorium was only to allow time for another policy to be developed. I don’t know why people are resistant to it. I’m still getting feedback from employees that morale among city-parish employees is down because departments keep rehiring retired staff.”
As Business Report highlights in a new feature, 48 city-parish employees work under the retire/rehire policy, which allows retired staffers to return to work on a part-time basis while still collecting full retirement benefits. Collectively, they earn $2.34 million in annual salaries. Several high profile staffers, including heads of the Downtown Development District and the Finance Department, fall under the retire/rehire arrangement.
The policy came under scrutiny in March when Collins-Lewis launched a failed bid to end it. She then sought the 90-day moratorium to allow a new policy to be created with input from all stakeholders.
Council members Buddy Amoroso, Collins-Lewis, Barbara Freiberg and Erika Green voted in favor of the moratorium, while Trae Welch, Dwight Hudson and Scott Wilson voted against. Chandler Loupe, Matt Watson and Tara Wicker did not vote.
Defenders of the policy say it saves the city-parish money and helps prevent key positions from remaining vacant for any period of time.
DDD Executive Director Davis Rhorer says his work under the retire/rehire policy saves the city-parish nearly $100,000 in salary and benefits each year that would otherwise go toward a full-time director. And even though he’s paid part-time—the policy limits retire/rehire employees to 29 hours per week—Rhorer says he still keeps a more than a full-time schedule.
Take a look below at seven high-profile staffers who work under the retire/rehire policy, including their pay rates before and after retirement, their monthly retirement pay and their estimated total compensation, which combines monthly estimated pay and monthly retirement pay over 12 months.
