November 7, 2000
It all started like this: Mayor Jean Kipp Dean filed a suit against the Huntington Police Department in order to dissolve the HPD's Pension Board, consisting of Ray Berry, Charles Kingery, Randy Byard and John Williams. The Police Department then retaliated with a suit of their own for $7 million in unpaid pension money, and a Writ of Mandamus for the city to make its payments on time.
According to Pension Board member Kingery, the city hasn't made a payment since late September, early October... and that was for the month of July.
"The projected unfunded liability for is $43 million," Kingery said. "That's how much the pension fund will be underfunded at the end of its 40-year period. I believe that comes up in 2032."
Kingery said that both suits will be heard in February of 2001, but the Writ should be heard very soon. Judge David Pancake will hear the suits.
"We're suing for the full $7 million," Kingery said. "The city says it should only pay a little less than $1 million. The money we want is city money. It's the city's liability."
When asked if the city made its payments on time, Kingery said it hardly ever happened.
"They'll make a payment but it'll be late," Kingery said. "Sometimes by a few days, sometimes by a few months."
Kingery also said that the city should be putting about $66,000 a month into the pension fund, and that the state will not put its part of the fund money in until the city comes up with its share.
"They (the city) always expresses the desire to respond to the problem," Kingery said. "But when it comes down to action, they don't."
Kingery didn't know why Mayor Dean filed the suit to dissolve the pension board.
"I have no idea," Kingery said. "She's never expressed why she wanted to do that, and she hasn't been to any of the preliminary hearings about it. We've had two or three that have actually been in court, but she hasn't shown up."
Kingery also said that the whole thing didn't seem quite right to him.
"We tried to educate ourselves as to what our responsibility was (as the pension board), and part of it was to report the condition of the pension fund to city council," Kingery said. "We had never done that before, and at the first council meeting we attended and made our report, that same day, the suit was filed against us. And after our report, there were a lot of council members who had no idea this was happening. It was the first they had ever heard of it."
The current HPD Pension Board consists of: Kingery, Byard, Williams and Ed Wilds. Ray Berry retired this year, and therefore couldn't remain on the board.
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T. Michael Murdock, HNN News Editor