Their anger stems from City Council’s efforts to eliminate overtime spending for public safety agencies, which includes the Fire Department. Both the Fire Department and Police Department are significantly above their budgets this year. Overtime spending is also over budget, and council members have seized on that issue to save money.

But council members are the reason the fire and police departments are over budget in the first place — which we wrote about last week. Because City Council members and city officials did not balance the city’s check book for several years, officials had no idea the city was spending millions more than budgeted for employee health care costs. When they finally figured it out, they told city departments they had to absorb the costs. So, midway through this budget year, city officials told the fire department they had to add an additional $1.2 million to their budget — money they had not planned to spend.

Fire Chief Bradley Anderson had to make some tough decisions, including shutting down two fire engines and reducing some staffing at fire stations to cover the costs.

Now, with city officials targeting firefighters’ overtime, city firefighters are fighting back. The Columbia Firefighters Association has issued to press releases so far about the budget cuts, where they state:

Overtime pay in the fire service is a misunderstood issue. If overtime paid to public safety employees is removed there are only two options: to reduce staffing, or hire more entry level employees. Not understanding how overtime is paid and used to save money in these systems can easily lead a well meaning observer to come to the conclusion that overtime must be cut. In most instances, however, overtime in the public safety divisions is actually a cost savings measure. “overtime” pays for mandated OSHA required training, fully staffing critical public safety positions, and the on-going inspections of City buildings. We can assure you that it is not to pad the pockets of wealthy blue-collar fire fighters.

Not according to one reader that I spoke to on the phone this morning. She didn’t want to give her name, but she scoffed at the $33 a month Columbia retirees will pay for their insurance. She’s retired, and she pays $700 a month.

“This is unbelievable what they are paying,” she said.

But you can decide for yourself. Here are the details of the new plan, as written by Councilman Daniel Rickenmann:

Retirees younger than 65 will have to pay 10 percent of the premium for themselves and 30 percent of the premium for their dependents (spouse, children). Here are the rates:

• Single: $33.18/month
• Employee/spouse: $172.54/month
• Employee/child: $82.59/month
• Family: $252.17/month

The city will guarantee the rate for 18 months. The plan will save taxpayers $970,000 a year.

Retirees older than 65 will rely on Medicare. The city will provide them with a supplemental policy with a prescription card for free. Retirees will have to pay about $67 a month for their spouses, according to Rickenmann.

Keep in mind that until now, retirees had never paid anything for their insurance. When they planned for their retirement, they did not factor in health insurance costs. For active employees, it just means they might have to delay their retirement for a year or two. But for employees already retired, they have to suck it up or get another job.

Also keep this in mind: According to Mayor Bob Coble, state government offers a similar plan for retirees that cost $90 a month. I could not confirm this with Michael Sponhour at the state Budget and Control Board, but the mayor is a trustworthy guy.

E.W. Cromartie

“The finances of the city have drastically changed. I don’t want to vote for going back on that promise. But as a council members, I have to make tough decisions. I have to balance the prosperity of where we were before unfortunately with the reality of where we are today.”

“When you’re making money, you don’t think about these problems.”

“My heart tells me I want to vote not because I feel like we made that commitment. But my head tells me to support it.”

Kirkman Finlay

“We can’t afford it today, and if we’d been keeping our books correctly we couldn’t have afforded it five years ago.”

On the prospect of more budget cuts:

“I wish there was somewhere else mathematically to go. I will be blunt — we will be back.”

Tameika Isaac Devine

On retiree’s claim the city promised them free health insurance:

“It’s hard to listen to things people truly believe were promised to them. But the reality is, I don’t know what will happen. That was a very irresponsible promise to make.”

Belinda Gergel

“In the 1980s, I became a school teacher thinking health insurance forever would be a part of that privilege. Today, state employees pay their health insurance.”

“In many ways, our municipal government has been asleep for the last several years and we have woken up.”

Mayor Bob Coble

“The plan we have adopted is similar or better to the plan offered by the State of South Carolina to their employees in terms of benefits. Active and retired City employees will pay $33 a month for single coverage. A similar or or lesser plan costs State active and retired employees about $90 per month. All of these decisions by Council have been unanimous votes with the recommendation of our interim City Manager Steve Gantt.”

Daniel Rickenmann

“I didn’t make a promise. I wish this wasn’t the case.”

“I could not look at every taxpayer and not take advantage of (these savings.)”

With that in mind, you might be surprised to find that council members are scheduled to approve more than $2.2 million in spending at Wednesday’s council meeting  (agenda) on things like vetter rescue bags, doxycycline and TASERs.

While $2.2 million is a lot of money, only about $60,000 of that will come out of the troubled general fund. Items like the doxycycline, TASERs and MMRS plan upgrade all come from federal grants instead of city tax money.  $1,998,075.48 of that $2.2 million comes out of the water and sewer fund, which does not have a deficit. About $60,000 of that $2.2 million will be charged to the general fund, mostly to the fire department for equipment and fleet services for safety training.

Retirees listen to a presentation about proposed changes to their health insurance.

More than 200 retired Columbia employees packed City Hall last night to get some answers from City Council members about their health insurance. The crowd was so packed that Columbia Fire Marshal Carmen Floyd was on hand, keeping track of how many people came and went.

This was the first face to face meeting between council members and retirees, who are upset about a proposal that would require them to start paying for their health insurance. Retirees thought they were meeting with council members last week when they came to a meeting at City Hall. But no council members showed up. That didn’t go over well.

Last week, Councilman Daniel Rickenmann presented a plan that would keep insurance free for retirees, but cost as much as $850 a month for retirees’ family members. That also did not go over well.

So last night, the stage was set for a confrontation. At the start of the meeting, Rickenmann withdrew his plan and offered the original plan, where retirees would pay the same as active employees.

A retired firefighter complains to Council Members about proposed changes to his health insurance.

Throughout this process, the firefighters have been the most vocal critics, and they didn’t disappoint last night. One firefighter, who retired from the fire department in 1983, took the microphone last night to tell council members what they have been hearing for weeks:

“I was supposed to be vested in this policy for life. The told me I wouldn’t have to pay a penny for my insurance,” he  said. “If I’ve hurt somebody’s feelings for telling the truth, well tough.”

So why should you care? City taxpayers spent $18 million last year on employee health care. Retirees and their dependents accounted for $6 million. To put that in perspective, the city has 2200 employees, and close to 600 retirees. That means retirees make up a quarter of the city’s policy holders, but account for a third of the costs.

To put it another way, it cost taxpayers $7,500 per active employee for health care. It cost taxpayers $10,000 per retiree for health care. If retirees start paying premiums for their health insurance, it will reduce that cost. And for a city facing a multi-million deficit, that could be helpful.

But retirees don’t care about that. They worked hard for the city, in some cases risking their lives. They saved for their retirement on the assumption they wouldn’t have to pay for their health insurance. Now they feel betrayed.

Council members are expected to vote on the plans May 6.

For the full agenda, click here.

One interesting thing to note is item number 12 on the agenda. United Cerebral Palsy of South Carolina will house four people at 1672 Shady Lane. The zoning for that area does not allow for four unrelated people to live in the same house. Last week, council members met with their attorney in a closed session to discuss the issue and determined that state law overrides the city’s zoning. So instead of asking council to vote on something tomorrow, United Cerebral Palsy is just letting council know what they are doing.

For 20 years, Keep the Midlands Beautiful has been funded in part by Columbia taxpayers, most recently for $20,000 a year. But with Columbia cutting its budget because of poor accounting practices and out of control health insurance costs, some groups that depend on city funding are getting cut.

Keep the Midlands Beautiful officials were at the council meeting to declare 2009’s summer as the “summer of sunflowers,” and gave each council member a sunflower to plant. But since they were in the neighborhood, KMB officials also used their time to ask council not to cut their funding next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

“We save the city money. Every government dollar we receive, we give back $4 in benefits,” said executive director Heidi Johnson. “We want to remain a partner.”

Johnson asked for $10,000.

“We have heard from employees feeling it was not fair,” he said.

On Cromartie’s motion, council members voted to have all employees pay the same flat rate for health insurance premiums, beginning July 1. No word yet on how much those premiums will be.

But the vote was not unanimous. Councilman Kirkman Finlay voted no, saying he believed the only employees who wanted a flat rate were the employees who make more than $50,000 a year.

“I would love to have seen the data across all bands on the people that did not want health care more inexpensively,” Finlay said. “It seems to me that we need to focus on trying to help the two-thirds of the city that makes less money pay for their health insurance.”

Firefighters are upset about possibly losing their premium-free health insurance, but if the city doesn’t do something taxpayers could lose $96 million.

Anthony Holloway, the association’s secretary, spoke to council. Here are his talking points:

1. Firefighters have already taken as much as 11 percent losses in wages and benefits without a complaint.
2. We have worked diligently with the fire department and City Council to identify ways to save the City money during this financial crisis.
3. Now the city is considering taking the dignity from the retirement of our brother and sister firefighters by making their health care unaffordable and leaving them uninsured.
4. Most firefighters who are retired today served the citizens of this city at a time when safety was rarely considered or funded by the city. They inhaled highly toxic smoke for many years during their efforts to protect lives and property in the City of Columbia.
5. Firefighters as a group have incidents of almost all types of cancer at rates of at least twice that of average individuals.
6. Now the city seeks to take way their health care in the time of their life when it is most needed.
7. Firefighters spend most of their lives helping strangers in their hours of greatest need, but now in their hour of need the City they served prepares to turn their back on them.

The story dealt with retirees who are pre-65, because they would see the biggest changes. The city wants to change benefits for those older than 65, but the changes will have less of an impact on retirees. I’ll try to explain the proposed changes here:

The city is self-insured. Instead of the city paying an insurance company to pay for employees’ health care costs, the city pays all of its employees health care costs itself. For retirees older than 65, Medicare pays most of the cost, and the city pays whatever Medicare doesn’t cover.

With this approach, the city doesn’t know how much money it will spend each year for health care costs, which makes it hard to prepare a budget. Council members are considering purchasing a supplemental insurance policy for its retirees 65 years and older. That way, the city would pay an insurance company a flat rate every year, and the insurance company would then pay health care costs for the city’s post-65 retirees. However, the insurance company would only pay up to a certain amount. If a retiree goes over that amount, the retiree would have to pay the rest of the cost out of pocket.

Because retirees make up the largest percentage of the city’s health care costs, the proposal could potentially save taxpayers some money.