Correction: Employers contribute almost 15 percent to employees’ plans in the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System. This article incorrectly stated who made that contribution to the retirement system.
Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau employees now will operate under the city’s new pension plan after a unanimous vote by the city’s Advertising and Planning Commission on Tuesday.
The city’s new defined-benefit pension plan is the result of two years’ worth of efforts after the state Legislature threatened to force the city into the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System. Employees under that system contribute almost 15 percent of their salaries to their retirement fund.
Under Little Rock’s current pension plan, employees contribute 3.5 percent compared with the employer’s 7 percent. The new plan will raise each of those to 4.5 percent and 9 percent, respectively.
The Advertising and Planning Commission had the option of accepting the city’s new pension plan - which begins with the Dec. 28 pay period and will increase the Visitors Bureau’s contributions to the program about $90,000 next year - or the agency could search for a different program on its own.
“Trying to do our own with only 124 employees, not knowing the administrative costs and knowing there are going to be administrative costs, it really comes down to economically are we going to be spending the extra money for the administrative costs or the benefits for the employees?” said Visitors Bureau President Gretchen Hall at Tuesday’s commission meeting.
Commissioner Larry Carpenter asked whether the agency should look for competitive plans in the open market, but Commission Chairman Warren Simpson responded that the cost would be substantial and not worth it.
“I think if you compare everything, if you really compared it all and did it all up, the way this plan is structured, it’s a tough plan to administer - a tough plan to do - and we are coming out fine,” Simpson said.
Under the new pension plan, an employee with 20 years of service who meets all the qualifications could retire at age 55 and receive 80 percent of his average salary, Mayor Mark Stodola said. An employee with 10 years of service who met all the qualifications could retire at age 62 and an employee with three years of service could retire at age 65.
The Advertising and Planning Commission also approved a resolution detailing the city’s contribution to the three-bridge light project set to debut with a light show Dec. 19.
In conjunction with its 100th birthday, Entergy donated $2 million to help light the Main Street Bridge, the Junction Bridge Pedestrian Walkway and the Clinton Presidential Park Bridge.
To meet the total costs of lighting all three bridges, more funding was needed. The commission committed Little Rock to donate up to $175,000 by passing the resolution Tuesday.
Stodola said North Little Rock also will donate $175,000, the William J. Clinton Foundation will donate $100,000 and the Pulaski County Junction Bridge Public Facilities Board will donate $50,000. Philips Lighting Co. - which has designed light displays for the London Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House and the Empire State Building - is donating about $100,000 in LED lights.
“I think it’s something that’s really going to resonate across the state and probably the region in terms of people coming to Little Rock to see this,” Stodola said. “We did an economic impact [study] on this and it is going to be a tremendous magnet for money and hotels, particularly downtown hotels.”
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 10/23/2013