Thu
Nov 9 2006
03:39 pm
New pension plan for Sheriff's department approved by voters
By: Number9

In a razor thin vote Knox County voters ignored Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale and the Knoxville News Sentinel and voted to approve the new pension plan for Knox County Sheriff's Deputies. The Knox County Mayor and the daily paper had launched a campaign to "educate" the voters. A big point was made of how much the pension plan would cost.

However, recently approved decisions like the Midway Industrial Park in the Thorn Grove Community were treated the old fashion way. In other words the cost was never broken down to how many cents on the dollar it would cost in a potential property tax increase. Do you know what is interesting? The pension plan and the Midway Industrial Park cost the same amount of money.

I have an idea where that money could be found...

The final vote after the lone voting machine from Downtown West was fixed revealed a vote of  52,013 yes votes and 51,516 no votes. The pension plan was approved by only 497 votes. I am happy to say one of them was from me. Congratulations to our uniformed officers. You deserved it.

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Knoxquerious's picture

Very Close

Submitted by Knoxquerious on Thu, 2006/11/09 - 3:57pm.

Well, good for the KSD deputies. I am most happy for the Sheriff though. Lord knows he needs the 80K a year he will get after retirement. I mean, the millions he has been bringing in from the construction/towing companies can only stretch so far, right? I understand he and his buddies are planning to buy out Dean Stallings Ford also. Oh well, hopefully he will win the lottery.

talidapali's picture

I'm glad for the KCSO officers...

Submitted by talidapali on Thu, 2006/11/09 - 4:10pm.

But I am also really, really disappointed in the City voters that did not approve the cost of living amendment for the retired teachers that were city teachers until the schools were incorporated with the county schools...those hard-working teachers that stayed on and basically started their careers over with the county just got shafted big time. I wish people had taken the time to really understand the issue, because those teachers deserve a cost-of-living increase in their retirement pay as much as anyone else.

"You can't fix stupid..." Ron White

Bbeanster's picture

I could be wrong here, but

Submitted by Bbeanster on Thu, 2006/11/09 - 4:29pm.

I could be wrong here, but my best recollection is that the court ordered the county to absorb the expense of maintaining the city teachers' pensions, and that those benefits continued side-by-side with new benefits accrued under the county/state retirement system.

talidapali's picture

This is the amendment...

Submitted by talidapali on Thu, 2006/11/09 - 5:57pm.

I was talking about....

CITY CHARTER AMENDMENT
O-127-06
CITY OF KNOXVILLE CHARTER
AMENDMENT SUBMITTED BY THE
COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF KNOXVILLE
PERTAINING TO THE CITY PENSION
SYSTEM:
SHALL ARTICLE XIII OF THE CITY OF
KNOXVILLE CHARTER, ENTITLED
"PENSIONS", BE AMENDED TO ELIMINATE
A COST OF LIVING SUNSET PROVISION
FOR CERTAIN BOARD OF EDUCATION
MEMBERS OF PLAN A, ALL AS MORE
FULLY SET FORTH IN ORDINANCE NO.
O-127-06 OF THE CITY OF KNOXVILLE AS
DULY PUBLISHED?
"The Chief Financial Officer's cost estimate of
the proposed charter amendment is
$2,100,000. If this provision is passed, the
City of Knoxville will fund the pension plan in
the amount of approximately $240,000 per
year for the next 15 years."

and this is a copy of the letter that the teachers sent out to educate people about the amendment. 

"You can't fix stupid..." Ron White

CBT's picture

I don't like tax increases,

Submitted by CBT on Thu, 2006/11/09 - 5:41pm.

I don't like tax increases, but I have no problem with the KCSO pension. These men and women work for generally low pay, do jobs none of us want to do and have a shorter work life.

As for the Sheriff, he's put in close to 30 years at the KCSO and done every job from process server, jailer, patrolman, SWAT team, helicopter pilot and now Sheriff. There are only a handful of folks at the Sheriff's office who make over $75,000 or so. The rest work for modest wages. It's unfair to penalize hundreds of employees because 5 or so stand to take home a higher pension.

Folks who put on kevlar to go to work deserve a good pension plan. I've ridden along with a Sheriff's patrol. There's a world out there that most people don't even know exists. I'm glad the plan passed.

Scott1202's picture

Something is fishy

Submitted by Scott1202 on Thu, 2006/11/09 - 6:06pm.

Did I just hear correctly on WATE? That the memory chip for the malfunctioning E-Slate was damaged and had to be rebuilt? This seems suspicious.

The votes from that machine should be voided. If that requires a re-vote on the pension issue...so be it.

bizgrrl's picture

A memory chip rebuilt? I

Submitted by bizgrrl on Thu, 2006/11/09 - 6:51pm.

A memory chip rebuilt? I wish I had seen that. Maybe, hopefully, there was more to the story and they just couldn't explain it without being too technical. I think they should go ahead and explain it in detail. There are a lot of computer geeks around here as well as even more engineers (I think).

Mackay's picture

A memory chip rebuilt?

Submitted by Mackay (not verified) on Thu, 2006/11/09 - 7:23pm.

A memory chip rebuilt? No !
That is, obviously, wrong.
The chip was moved to functioning board.

I'll call WATE tonight.

R. Neal's picture

Greg, that sounds more

Submitted by R. Neal on Thu, 2006/11/09 - 7:37pm.

Greg, that sounds more right. See other questions on the Downtown West voting problems thread.

It would be good to get a technical explanation directly from Hart out to wherever you can, even if it is just on the blogs, so people can better understand the problem and the solution and give tech savvy people an opportunity to dissect and explain it for good or ill.

Filtering it through reporters who are a couple of chips shy of a fully populated motherboard and don't know the difference between a data bus and the uptown bus probably isn't helping bolster public confidence in the system.

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