Did Lodi Inflate Chief Caruso’s Pension Numbers?

Two questions need to be answered:

1)  Why did the Lodi council put  a 12% longevity payment in Chief Caruso’s most recent contract?

This past October, this administration answered “YES” to the following question (#45) on the State’s “Best Practices Questionnaire” : “ Has your municipality adopted an ordinance, resolution, regulation or policy eliminating longevity awards, bonuses, or payments, for non-union employees”.

Link to questionnaire:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/177573655/Lodi-s-2013-Completed-Best-Practices-Questionnaire-Another-Year-of-Deception 

Chief Caruso has an individual employment contract.  He does not have a union contract.  He does not have collective bargaining agreement through the PBA like the rest of the police force.  

Months after telling the State that they eliminated longevity awards for non-union employees, this council put a 12% longevity payment in Chief Caruso’s contract that was adopted on February 18, 2014 (pages 12-13).

Link to contract:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/229065515/Chief-Caruso-s-2014-Contract

(Lodi lied on #46 as well on the Best Practice Questionnaire with regard to longevity payouts for employees covered by collective bargaining agreements, but that is something we can discuss at a later time)

2)  Why did Lodi include this longevity payout as part of the Chief’s “Base Salary” when reporting his recent figures to the NJ Police and Firemen’s Retirement System?

This administration did not include his longevity pay when they put out their 2013 budget.  In fact, they estimated his annual base salary (220 days) at $150,000 when they did their own budgeting.

They included his longevity pay as part of his base salary when they reported his pension numbers for 2013.  But they did not do that in years past according to the Asbury Park database.  Did they do this to coincide with retirement?

Longevity payments should not be included as “Base Salary”.

Extra Compensation

“Extra compensation is not included in base salary. Extra compensation means individual salary adjustments granted primarily in anticipation of retirement or as additional compensation for performing temporary duties beyond the regular workday. Extra compensation includes but is not limited to overtime, bonuses, lump sum longevity, vacation pay, holiday pay, and compensation not included in normal routine paychecks. For more information, see Fact Sheet #56, Creditable Compensation - PFRS.”

http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/pensions/epbam/pensions/enrollments/enrpfrs.htm#pfrsrate

Fact Sheet #56:

 http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/pensions/pdf/factsheets/fact56.pdf

Pension Padding

by thenumbers, 07/14/14 7:17 PM 

Using $187, 410.72 as Chief Caruso's final compensation instead of his actual base salary of $167, 331, allows him to collect $13,453.41 more a year or $1,121.12 more a month.

Did anyone from Lodi check with the State before they added a 12% longevity bonus to the final base salary for pension purposes.