Oh yeah, all right, good afternoon.

Thank you for being here.

We're going to start our budget and finance committee.

Let the record reflect.

And on today's agenda, we have Bill 55 as well as a review of our financial reports.

We'll start with our review of Bill 55.

Bill 55 and ends part one administrative legislation, Chapter 75, pensions and retirement, Article Three, Police Pension Fund by adding a new section, pension service credit for prior police service with the another police department.

Thank you.

So I'd like to hand it off to Director Patel to kind of give us a little breakdown of of what exactly is entailed in Bill 55.

Sure.

Good evening.

This was in uh in introduced long time ago.

It got approved.

Um introduced by Senate, it was approved in um twenty twenty-four.

In twenty twenty-one, I'll walk you, I'll give you a little bit of history behind how we uh uh ended up with this.

Um back in twenty twenty-one when um the mayor then was Mayor O'Connell, he had signed an uh memorandum of understanding stating that if Senate Bill four sixty four comes to fruition, um, which allows uh police officers to purchase up to five years of service they have provided with other um uh taxing authorities within Pennsylvania.

So for example, if they have served uh Upper McConji Township um five years up to five years, they will be able to purchase that time.

That's what the MOU stated that that it allows so Mayor O'Connell signed that back in twenty twenty-one, that MOU stating that if this bill comes to fruition, City of Allentown will allow the officers that have provided service to other taxing authorities within Pennsylvania to purchase that time that they served.

So that bill was um that uh act it's known as Act 49, um, that got approved in July of Twenty Twenty-Four.

We were working, the uh finance team was working with the um um uh FOP leadership to bring this to fruition.

Anytime we make any changes to our pension plan, we have to do an actual study, an actual yield study was performed uh back in um November of twenty twenty-four.

It what it does, what what the idea behind that is what is the cost of the pension plan?

That's what the actual study is done for.

So it provides a cost factor to it, and then we had our our police administration um um run um a study to see how many officers if we when we do this, um how many officers are uh have served other municipalities in Pennsylvania, what is the cost factor to it?

What is the cost factor to it?

So all of that was performed.

We have provided that for your reference as an attachment to the bill.

So that was performed.

We were working with F again FOP leadership to bring this to fruition.

We could not come to an agreement on what did the MOU state it.

So we went into an arbitration in 2025.

So we took a year to come to an agreement that the MOU states this allows you to purchase a time up to five years.

So yeah, arbitration award came out in June 29 of 2026.

And so arbitrators stated that yes, the MOU signed by Mayor O'Connell states that officers can purchase up to five years of time for pension purposes.

So it extit does not extend beyond pension.

You can purchase up to five years of service for pension purposes, and that's all the MOU stated.

So that's the agreement.

Arbitrators stated how do we verify that purchase time.

So there are forms attached to the this bill stating what do we need, how do we verify that?

And how does the officer request that?

So all of that administrative part is attached.

Any changes we make to the pension plan, the council has to approve.

And so this is uh before you today.

And this has gone through arbitration again, it only awards them to purchase the time they have served, up to five years of service.

So when the uh police administration did this survey to find out how many officers we have that qualify for this, at that time there were active 13 officers who qualified for that.

So actual year study uh took that 13 um number 13.

So if we were to implement that, it would be over 11 years.

The cost of the pension plan will be 150,000.

That's 14,000 per year for 11 years, they always do the um uh uh amortization over 11 years.

Then there were uh others on uh active officers that would qualify, and there were 50, I believe 53, 52 officers that um could be eligible in the future years.

And if if they are eligible and they wish to purchase that time, the cost of the pension plan would be uh 510 um over 11 years or 46, uh 300 per year for 11 years.

So all of that is um um broken down for you in the uh bullet points.

And so what what does the city gain by this by doing this?

We if someone has um worked, if an officer has worked for another um municipality, we gain an officer with experience.

That's the idea behind that this is this was a thought behind this MOU that we will be receiving officers who have who have experience, and that helps our our police department that helps us get better quality officers.

That's the idea behind this.

So well thought out plan by Mayor O'Connell uh to gain to help our um you know recruitment uh problems that we are having and we continuously have.

Um so I would I am um requesting that you um vote yes for this.

But I'm open to any questions you might have.

Thank you, Director Patel.