MIDLAND, Texas — The Midland Firemen’s Relief and Retirement Fund was again a topic of conversation Monday in the Tall City.
It all follows a funding resolution that was brought up at their board meeting last Wednesday in an effort to fix the underfunded pension.
The Firemen's Board voted to approve the resolution on Monday, which means they plan to cut an additional 5% in benefits after cutting 7.1% in the Summer of 2023.
Midland City Council was briefed on that funding resolution and there is belief that this is a step in the right direction in what have been back-and-forth negotiations.
“This resolution is just a commitment of this board to move forward in the manner of providing the education that the firefighters need so that they can take a vote and we can do our part of this, and in the meantime we’ll still be working with the City of Midland to come to the remainder of the agreement," said Justin Graham, chairman of the Midland Firemen's Retirement and Relief Fund.
The Midland Firemen’s Board officially took action on Monday, but Graham said with progress comes pain.
“We don’t want to hurt any one person more than the next person, but when it boils down to it, this is for the rest of these guys’ lives so it’s going to hurt no matter how we go about it," Graham said.
The hurt comes in cutting an additional 5% of their benefits, bringing that total to 12.1% for Midland firemen.
That would be done through a vote by active-duty firefighters, with the hope to find a plan change that works best for all.
“We have a range of guys that got hired at 35 years old all the way to guys that got hired at 20 years old," Graham said. "Well, any change is going to affect each one of those members differently and we want to make sure that everybody knows what the affect is to them and how it’s going to affect their future – their family’s future -- for the rest of their lives.”
As negotiations continue, Midland Mayor Lori Blong said this is a shared response to a shared responsibility.
“We are excited for a solution to go forward in solving the debt, but this is a partial solution," Mayor Blong said. "We still have a total compensation conversation to have, we still have several conversations to be had about the ongoing performance of the fund in terms of investment performances as well as governance performance and the different things in the documents that support that.”
While this plan is now in place, there is still more work to be done.
“We want to reduce the growing liability on the taxpayers and on the city – we want to reduce the worry that these firefighters have," Graham said.
Graham said recruitment and retainment is a big issue they have, so getting this solved is important on that front.
Mayor Blong added that the city wants to get to a motion toward a 30-year amortization period in order to help pay off the roughly $121 million in debt over time.