13th Check IP: 174.131.37.239 Posted on December 27, 2012 at 10:16:59 PM by Fred Urbuteit
December 27, 2012
The President of The Tampa Fire & Police Retirees Association, Tom DePolis, in his Winter 2013 News Letter on their site, outlines the process that the City of Tampa Fire & Police Pension Board of Trustees has structured for the payment of the 13th Check !
The Certification of each step is required by Law ( Chapters I75 & I85 )and must be approved by the Pension Board of Trustees.
The 1st two steps are usually completed, and approved by the Pension Board, by the October Pension Board meeting of each year. This leaves 7 months for the next two steps to be completed as structured by Pension Board!
This prompts the question by so many retirees, " WHY SO LONG "?
In my opinion the answer to this is : Because the City of Tampa Fire & Police Pension Board of Trustees, in the past , structured the process in this fashion. The Trustees , if they wanted, could structure the process to accelerate the payment date!
HOW CAN THEY DO THIS? Simply by having Special meetings to approve each step when completed , instead of waiting for the regular Board meeting at the end of each month and by requiring the Actuary Firm to accelerate their Certification date, not taking 90 days from the city accountants certification.
Of course this would induce the usual drama ,and meaningless fluff from the Plan Administrator, " Our staff is over worked, most important that we get the monthly checks out, and ETC.& ETC. " but as the Administrator says at every opportunity " we have an excellent staff ". I would be confident they would measure up to this miniscule amount of extra work to help out the retirees.
This would not only be an excellent " goodwill gesture" to all the retirees, it would also be a positive sign of
" Fiduciary Responsibility " to the Plan members!
Our last 13th check was approximatly $11,231.00 and could have been used by many retirees at an earlier date, some even died in the period from October to the end of May and did not enjoyed their just due benefit.
JUST MY OPINION !!!
Tampa Fire Rescue ( Ret. ) District Chief Fred Urbuteit.
P.S. Check the Tampa Fire & Police Retirees Association site for Tom DePolis' outline of the way the Pension Board structured the process to determine the determination of us recieving the 13th Check and how much it would be.