Introduced by: Councilmember Welch
A Resolution Entitled
A Council Resolution concerning
title
Protecting Baltimore City Retirees
For the purpose of requesting that the City reexamine current plans for retiree health care benefits and evaluate how those plans can be improved to safeguard the well-being of both the City and its essential workers.
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Recitals
Baltimore City government can only function through the hard work and efforts of its employees. Without them, the City simply could not achieve any of its goals. Keeping faith with them to reward their prior service, encourage maximum efforts in the future, and retain top-level talent is therefore critical to the success of all City programs.
Longtime employees eligible for pensions in particular represent much of the City’s institutional knowledge and ability to act effectively. And yet, in recent years, City employees have grown increasingly concerned about their long-term well-being as a series of proposed and implemented cuts to retirement benefits have continued to be advanced.
Recently, proposals to dramatically change or eliminate health care benefits for City retirees have come to the fore. These proposals are not well understood by many retirees and veteran employees, and reports about them have contributed to anxiety about whether the City is willing or able to hold up its end of the bargain with workers who have devoted the majority of their careers to making Baltimore a better place.
In order to address these concerns, it is important that the City take a hard look at current and long term plans for City retiree healthcare, as well as the implications of those plans for ret...
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