While details have not been released, Jeff Rainford, the mayor’s Chief of Staff, has started briefing the aldermanic council on the mayor’s intents. According to aldermen, Rainford has stated that if negotiations with the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 73 are not successful,

… the city would move to essentially “opt out” of the current system and start a new agency to govern firefighter retirement ….”

Slay has stalled a proposal already presented to the board for consideration that would save over $1 million a year, according to one alderman. The proposal was created through negotiations between the union and the City, with the drafting assistance of Dan Tobben and Cheryl Beebe Snell, attorneys for the Firemen’s Retirement System.

Joe Vaccaro, alderman in the city’s southwestern 23rd Ward, is frustrated that Slay has successfully stalled his bill, which he introduced this session to change firefighter disability benefits and save the city more than $1 million a year.

Slay asked Craig Schmid, alderman in south city’s 20th Ward and chair of the Public Employees committee, not to hear the bill until Slay’s plan is ready.

“He told me it doesn’t go far enough,” Vaccaro said of Slay. “Why not let my bill stand, save taxpayer money, and they can introduce their own legislation?”

Herein lies one of the underlying problems with the City’s proposal: does the City of St. Louis have the authority to set up a retirement system for its firefighters? In St. Louis, firefighter and police retirement systems are set up by state law, which Slay has publicly acknowledged.  In the article, Tobben stated that he did not think that, without a state law allowing it, the City can create its own pension system for new employees.

“This all sounds very speculative and uncertain at this point,” Tobben said. “Beyond that, they sound like they are going down a road that may not be legally proper.”

If the City is concerned about legality of such a move, its spokesman is choosing to not address the issue.

Rainford refused to address such concerns. “We’re not going to talk about the legal aspects of it at the moment,” he said Friday.

Read more … St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Read more … historical cases between the City of St. Louis and the Firemen’s Retirement System:

Firemen’s Retirement System vs. City of St Louis - Supreme Court decision

Firemen’s Retirement System vs. City of St Louis - Court of Appeals decision

Tim Woodward, a battalion chief, stated that he resigned over the issue surrounding the lawsuit over disability benefits for  Tom Robertson, a former Joplin fire department driver-engineer. Robertson’s original disability benefits were reduced when recalculated by the pension board, and the board later declined to reverse their decision in an appeal by Robertson.

Robertson’s attorney, Dan Tobben, of St. Louis, discussed the issue with the board before a lawsuit was filed. He contended that those covered by the plan did not authorize changes to the plan that reduced benefits.

According to the Globe, Woodward conducted his own research regarding whether the pension board was advised that previous changes to the plan would reduce firefighter disability payments. Woodward said that the board had a chance during the board meeting, when presented with evidence he had uncovered during his own research, to reverse their previous decision regarding Robertson’s recalculated reduced disability benefit pay. When the board would not seize the opportunity to settle the lawsuit, Woodward resigned from the board.

“There’s sufficient evidence, and I presented sufficient evidence that shows there was never any authorized change to calculating disability benefits,” Woodward said. “There was never discussion by any previous boards to do that. There was never any ballot that indicated any such change. There was never a vote. And yet [Brian] Head maintained it was authorized to change that disability calculation.”

Brian Head, Joplin’s city attorney and adviser to the pension board under the city charter, disagrees that the board and the union membership were not properly informed.

For information regarding the Robertson lawsuit, click here.

Read more … Joplin Globe

Read Ruth’s response here.

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Read the full article … St. Louis Bar Journal 

Dan Tobben has been working to help author the bill, according to stltoday.com.

Moreover, said Firemen’s Retirement System attorney Dan Tobben, whose office wrote much of  the bill, the education component will get disabled firefighters back into the  workforce.

“One of the big problems in America now is there are too many people getting  checks and not enough people working,” Tobben said. “This is a version of that.  We’re trying to get people to be back gainfully employed in the workforce.”

And while city leaders have consistently called the firefighter pension fund  a growing crisis, Tobben said he doesn’t believe it is as badly underfunded as  the city makes it out to be.

Read more … stltoday.com

“It seems to me that everybody in St. Louis who is going to fail has failed,” DeWoskin said. “You can only hang on for so long. After some period of time it’s going to kill you.”

But is that good news for the St. Louis area? Read more of DeWoskin’s thoughts …. the St. Louis Business Journal.

Read more on business bankruptcy in DeWoskin’s blog, “Protecting Against Preference Demands in a Bankruptcy Case.”

Co-authored by Stefan Knudsen, counsel with MFA, Inc., in Columbia, MO, this article takes a hard look at the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Ontario v. Quon, which involves public employees’ rights of privacy while using employer-owned technology. In this case, a police sergeant was disciplined for using his work pager for personal texts on the job, casuing him to go over his allowed usage.

In the discovery, it was determined his actual usage for work was minimal, and his personal texts contained inappropriate messages. His employer did not review all of his messages – but chose a representative two-month period for review. The sergeant sued claiming his 4th Amendment rights were violated. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the sergeant’s rights were not violated.

How do Michelman and Knudsen believe the ruling will affect employees’ right to privacy?

“It is crucial for employers to proactively notify employees—in writing—that they are to have no expectation of privacy on work-issued technology. Furthermore they need to enforce use policies of work-issued technologies.”

The article gives insight into what the decision may means, and what it does not mean, for employees and employers in respect to privacy on employer-owned electronic devices.

“Where a the employer needs to monitor, audit, search, or seize information from work-issued technology the employer must have a business-related purpose to do so, and the search must be limited to only that purpose. By the same token employees should attempt to keep personal information and data off of employer-owned technology resources.”

To read the full article, log into the St. Louis Bar Journal.

“She should make sure that the startup capital was borrowed on her own signature, and make sure it’s clear she is actually in control of the business – not acting as a figurehead.”

Read more … St. Louis Business Journal

“In moving Parties in the Park to Meramec Avenue this year, one focus and goal was to further increase and promote business to dining and retail establishments in the central business district by bringing the people to the streets,” said Jeff Schmitt, president of the Clayton Chamber of Commerce and principal at Danna McKitrick. “Based upon the first two parties this spring, it’s been a success.”

A graduate of the Chamber’s Leadership Clayton’s 2011 class, Schmitt also shared positive results of the class survey of young professionals’ opinions of  Clayton.

Read more … St. Louis Business Journal

According to his attorney, Dan Tobben, two issues are in play.

First, the city is not granting the full amount of service for the firefighter (15 years and 11 months) but is rounding it down to 15 years.

Second to the case, and more important, involves a change to the plan in 1993. Tobben asserts that the pension board did not disclose to the firefighters prior to a vote to amend their pension changes years regarding a reduction in benefit pay to those with less than 20 years of service. This change decreased the benefit pay from one-half of their working pay at the time of disability to one-third of their pay.

When Tobben appeared before the pension board in May, he stated that there is nothing that documents that firefighters were informed of the change to their disability pay and if they had been informed, the firefighters never would have voted for the amended plan.

Read more… Joplin Globe