Because of the efforts by some members of the Baltimore County Council to deflect public anger by finger-pointing and confusing the situation, the following needs to be made crystal clear:

The solution to the pension windfalls for incumbent council members made possible by Bills 40-24 and 47-24 is a simple and straightforward bill that in effect repeals Bill 40-24.

The scheme to create the windfalls was sneaky, but not complex.

Bill 40-24 allowed members who leave council at the end of this term to have the calculations of their pensions based on dramatic salary increases that take effect next term – increases they will never receive – rather than on their own salaries.

That’s contrary to the concept of a defined benefit pension plan, in which benefits are earned during employment and based on an employee’s earnings and length of service.

• Brew special series: County councilmen boost their pensions

I’m not going to repeat all of the background and details because this matter has been well reported, but I’ll give one example to remind readers of the scale of the windfalls:

If the salary increases recommended by the county’s Personnel and Salary Advisory Board are adopted, the annual pension of the sponsor of Bill 40-24, Councilman Wade Kach, would jump from $41,400 to $84,000 for his 12 years of service when he retires in December.

An Easy Fix

The primary purpose of Bill 40-24 was to create a more lucrative mechanism for calculating cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) in the pensions of retired council members than the formula used to calculate the COLAs of other retired county employees. The formula used for other retirees has resulted in one 3% increase in the past 14 years.

Bill 40-24 was amended after introduction to specify that council members who already had retired would not get the benefit of the new COLA provision. They were out of luck.

On the other hand, the amendment made sure that incumbent members would get the benefit of the new provision and, most importantly, that the calculations of their pensions would capture any big bump in salaries for active members that takes effect even after the incumbents leave office.

The council should simply repeal Bill 40-24.

Short of that, the law could be amended to push back the implementation date of the new pension formula from December 1, 2025, to a date well after the beginning of the new term on December 7, 2026.

That would eliminate the huge windfalls for incumbents but leave intact the provisions giving retired council members much better treatment than retired rank-and-file employees when it comes to COLAs for their pensions.

Patoka Proposal not the Answer

Simply reducing the recommended salaries is not the answer

In a statement to The Brew, Councilman Izzy Patoka, the sponsor of the other problematic bill (47-24), indicated that his response to the public backlash over the pension windfalls will be to vote to reduce the salaries recommended by the Personnel and Salary Board.

He can vote to reduce the recommended salaries if he believes that’s appropriate, but that’s not the answer to the pension windfalls.

Thanks in part to Bill 47-24’s merging into a single ballot question increasing the size of the council and requiring council membership “be considered a full-time position for the purpose of determining compensation,” the salary board had no option other than to recommend salaries commensurate with full-time employment.

The board’s recommendations are actually on the low side in comparison with the other two counties that have language in their charters requiring full-time compensation. The current salaries for members of the Prince George’s County Council, $138,000, and for members of the Montgomery County Council, $167,000, are likely to increase in the next term.

Even if the recommendations by the board are slashed by, say, $30,000 – from $140,000 to $110,000 for members and $150,000 to $120,000 for the chair – Patoka’s pension for eight years of service would increase from $30,800 to $48,000 if the provisions of Bill 40-24 remain in effect.

That’s $17,200 per year in pension benefits he didn’t earn.

Jones’ Charter Change Won’t Work

The proposal by Councilman Julian Jones to pass a charter amendment to reverse the decision by the electorate in 2024 and return the council to part-time status for purposes of compensation is a non-starter.

Under state law, the council must set the salaries for the next term before the general election on November 3, the very day that voters would decide the fate of proposed charter amendments.

How exactly would that work? Would the council adopt alternative salary schedules, one to take effect if Jones’ amendment passes and the other to take effect if it fails? I doubt that is even legal under the process mandated by state law.

In addition to creating chaos, a charter amendment would not solve the problem if Bill 40-24 remains in effect. Jones and the other incumbents still would have their pensions recalculated based on any future increases in member salaries rather than on their own final average earnings.

Admit Your Error

It’s never easy for a politician to own up to being wrong. Add to this the fact that three members of the council who voted for Bill 40-24 – Patoka, Jones and Councilman Pat Young – are seeking the Democratic Party nomination for county executive this year.

They are running against Nick Stewart, who has made the pension grab a campaign issue and last week demanded that Bill 40-24 be repealed.

I urge the council to introduce and vote on a bill that repeals 40-24 before the primary election on June 23. Let county voters see which of their lawmakers can rise above self-interest and do the right thing.

• David A. Plymyer retired as Anne Arundel County Attorney after 31 years in the county law office. He can be reached at dplymyer@comcast.net and Twitter @dplymyer.