INDIAN RIVER SHORES — Thursday morning the five members of the Indian River Shores Council unanimously voted to keep monthly pension checks intact for three retirees of the town, who have been receiving the pension checks for years.
Their vote is supported by a new town ordinance that says the pension plan will end on May 1, 2013, but “the plan will continue to pay the current three retirees who are receiving a monthly benefit.”
“We are thankful that they voted to keep what we were promised,” said retired town manager Virginia Gilbert.
Council members apologized to Gilbert, retired town clerk Barbara Readdy and retired postal master Alice Hayslip for previously voting to replace their monthly pension checks with a lump sum payout equal to only 8.3 years of their pension checks. And, they also apologized for poor communication with the women, who received several confusing and contradictory letters telling them about the lump sum payouts.
“This whole thing has been hugely stressful and I hope we can put it behind us,” said Readdy.
The back and forth over the three women’s pension checks has been going on since January, forcing them to seek investment advice and comb through their records for old documents that show they had been promised the pensions for life.
“We did a lot of work and had a lot of sleepless nights,” said Hayslip.
After the vote to continue the retirees’ pensions as they have been and to pass the ordinance stating so, Gilbert stood up and asked the council what was to stop another town council from overturning the ordinance in years to come and discontinuing their pension checks.
She asked for written protection — a contract or amendment — to back up the ordinance.
Shores attorney Chester Clem responded to the council: “By passing this ordinance we’ve done as much as we can. We have vested (the three retirees) within the council’s ability to do so, and they can take a great deal of comfort from this.”
After the meeting, councilman Tom Slater said, “The issue of stopping the three women’s monthly pension checks should never have come up in the first place.”
