Portland Fire Fighters Association

Firefighters' union vice presidents Gerard Pahissa and Paul Corah slipped an item onto the agenda of the Fire & Police Disability & Retirement Board for its July 13 meeting, proposing a dozen amendments to the City Charter that would have added big expenses for the fire and pension fund, already $1.2 billion in the red.

A couple of highlights: Firefighters proposed a deferred-retirement-option program, which would allow members who have maxed out pension benefits to essentially create a second retirement kitty. These so-called "DROP" systems have become a national scandal, wreaking havoc on city treasuries in San Diego, Houston and Philadelphia. In Milwaukee, Wisc., the county personnel director who introduced a DROP plan was convicted of a felony for misrepresenting the consequences.

Portland firefighters also asked for lifetime health-insurance coverage for those injured on the job, even if those injured returned to work before retirement (health benefits currently cease at retirement).

Firefighters deserve all the benefits they can win at the bargaining table. But their representatives tried to roll their charter amendments through a normally friendly board, past City Council and on to voters--who tend to be less detail-savvy than city bean counters.

Fortunately, Mayor Vera Katz got wind of the proposed perks' potential price tag. "There is no documentation of any of the 12 proposals sent in the Board packet, there is no fiscal analysis of any of the proposals, there is no legal analysis of any of the proposals and there is no analysis of the effects on City taxpayers, the City's levies and other levies within Multnomah County," she wrote to other board members on July 12.

Chastened, the firefighters pulled their proposal off the agenda. But Pahissa says they'll try again in two years.