Macon Fire and Police Department Pension Still Owed Millions

For a period of eighteen months, money was improperly paid to·the Macon Fire and Police Department pension fund. According to the 2009 audit, more than $4 million dollars is owed to the investment. After months of meetings between the pension board and city council, those affected say they are looking·for what they were promised.

“We’ve been promised a note for the past couple of months, and each month the board meets, it’s not on the agenda, and nobody seems to know what’s going on,” says Jimmy Hartley, former Macon-Bibb County Fire Chief.

Mayor Robert Reichert says that the city is doing it’s best to come up with a plan to pay back the money. Several payment options have been proposed but none have been finalized yet. He also claims the city was unaware of the extra money owed until six to nine months after the audit.

“What the city of Macon has been doing historically for a number of years is paying 6% of payroll into the pension plan… What the auditor’s report says because of the underfunding, using the evaluation of June the 30th 2009, you need to be putting in 16 percent… and we said for pete’s sake if we put that much money into it, it’s going to overfund the pension.”

The next meeting for the board and city council will be held Thursday, May 12th.