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Newsmakers

Houston, Dallas Pension Reforms Spur Police Retirements 

Surge in retirements due to changes that reduced benefits for officers.

By Michael Katz

The cities of Houston and Dallas have seen a surge in police retirements in 2017, a result of recent pension reforms for Texas retirement systems covering both cities’ law enforcement that resulted in reduced benefits for participants.

The Houston Police Department has had 362 officers either retire or trigger the retirement process during the fiscal year that ended June 30, which is the highest annual total for which records are available, according to the Houston Chronicle. Another 52 officers left the department voluntarily without having accumulated the years of service necessary to draw a pension check. That total number of resignations is approximately twice the amount that has been typical over the last decade. 

Meanwhile, in Dallas, 72 city police officers will leave by the end of August, said Dallas Police Association President Mike Mata, according to the local CBS television news affiliate.

“We’re losing some of our most experienced detectives,” said Mata. “The investigator you want to come out and solve that homicide, that you need to come out and solve that sexual assault.”

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At the end of May, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law pension reform for both the Dallas Police and Fire Pension Fund and the city of Houston.

The Dallas pension reform includes a reduction to benefits, and the creation of a new retirement plan. Additionally, it calls for contribution increases from participants, and decreases to Dallas’ contribution rates.  The reform package for Houston, known as the Houston Pension Solution, reduces the city’s $8.2 billion in unfunded liabilities through a reduction of benefits.

Although the pensions reforms were signed in May, the workforce drain began at the end of 2016 as it became clear that pension reform in 2017 was becoming increasingly inevitable. According to Ray Hunt, president of the Houston Police Officers Union, 124 officers signed up for retirement in December 2016.

“We’re hoping that the additional cadet classes more than keep up with the loss of manpower,” Hunt said in a statement in February. “If each cadet class operates at its maximum capacity, we will more than make up for the retirements, many of which have resulted from pension recalculations.”

Sgt. John Pohlman, who had been the most senior officer among the Houston Police Department with 49 years on the force when he retired in June, said in February that “the pension situation has pushed me over the edge about waiting past July 1” to retire. “When I did the recalculation, I lost $1,200 a month if I don’t leave by the end of June. To be honest, the pension thing didn’t push me over the edge. It made me doggone sure I was going to leave.”

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Home > News > Research > Labour, House of Commons: 37 Million to Be Affected by UK Pension Age Increase
Research

Labour, House of Commons: 37 Million to Be Affected by UK Pension Age Increase

More than 56,000 in Prime Minister’s constituency.

By Chris Butera

Almost 37 million people will be affected once the UK increases its state pension age, according to data from the House of Commons Library and an analysis from Labour.

Of the 36.9 million pensioners, 56,547 are from Prime Minister Theresa May’s Maidenhead constituency, while 59,290 reside in Work and Pension secretary David Gauke’s South West Hertfordshire constituency, according to the Labour analysis.

The data from the House of Commons Library found that another 61,753 under the age of 47 are in Chancellor Phillip Hammond’s constituency of Runnymede and Weybridge.

The current plans will level the state pension age for men and women to 65 at the end of 2018. They will then rise to 66 in 2020, 67 in 2028, and will then cap off at age 68 sometime between 2037 and 2039. This will force those born between 1970 and 1978 to wait an extra year before they can receive their retirement benefits.

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“Thanks to the Tories increasing the state pension age, 36.9m people will be forced to work longer, at the same time that evidence indicates life expectancy has stalled in some places and is reducing in others,” Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary, Debbie Abrahams, said in an interview with the Independent. “Theresa May should answer her 56,547 constituents, and the 36.9m people across Britain, whose hard-earned retirements are being postponed because of her Government.” 

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