At Tuesday’s Fairfield City Council Meeting, city leaders discussed a few options to fund the city’s liability for Police and Fire Pensions. City Leaders have until 2045 to fund the pensions by 90%. Currently, Fairfield is behind by $6.795 Million on those liabilities and Fairfield Mayor Gary Moore says that the problem has been kicked down the road way too many times and city leaders need to come up with a solution. Moore talks about how the officials come up with the figure for pension liabilities.
One solution that Mayor Moore brought up to the council was a tax increase of 7.99%. That would require a truth-in-taxation hearing prior to the next Fairfield City Council meeting on December 12th. Mayor Moore says that the tax levy has to be passed by end of council business that evening.
Currently, the city of Fairfield has been using revenues from the gaming tax and replacement property tax payments to fund the liability. Mayor Moore says that if the tax increase is not passed by December 12th, the city is going to have to come up with other ways to come up with the funding.
Another solution was mentioned by Alderman Dewey Eckleberry. Eckleberry mentioned an idea of raising the sales tax 1% instead of raising the property taxes. We have tried reaching out to Dewey, but our call has not been returned at this time.
Mayor Moore says that 14 police officers and 3 firefighters are drawing on the pension system with several more able to do so in the future.
The next Fairfield City Council meeting is Tuesday, December 12th. WFIW News will be on hand to cover that meeting and will report on what happens later in the evening on the 12th.