Retired black police seek pension parity

[KG]

ATLANTA - A "whites only" sign was still hanging on the precinct house water fountain in 1964 when James Booker joined the suburban College Park police force. He soon learned it wasn't the only thing off limits to Georgia's new black recruits.

Until 1976, black officers were blocked from joining a state-supported supplemental police retirement fund. Today, white officers who entered the fund before that year are taking home hundreds of dollars more every month in retirement benefits than their black counterparts.

The now-retired black officers have been lobbying hard to change that, but eight years after they began an effort to amend the state constitution and give them credit for those lost years is stalled in the Legislature. The Georgia Constitution prohibits the state from extending new benefits to public employees after they have retired.

If lawmakers don't take action in the final weeks of the legislative session, the battle will move to the courthouse this spring, said state Rep. Tyrone Brooks, an Atlanta Democrat and civil rights activist leading the officers' campaign.

"I was hoping we wouldn't have to go this route, but litigation appears to be our only option," Brooks said.

Ronald Hampton, executive director of the National Black Police Association, said he knows of no other state with a similar pension situation. "Only Georgia is shameless enough to still have this out there," Hampton said.

The Georgia House has twice passed an amendment resolution but it has gone nowhere in the state Senate. An amendment requires a vote of two-thirds of each chamber as well as approval by voters.

"We can't fix everything for everybody," said state Sen. Bill Heath, chairman of the Senate Retirement Committee.

Heath, a Republican, argued that making retroactive changes to retirement benefits "opens up a can of worms and could destroy the pension system."

The House Retirement Committee chairman, state Rep. Ben Bridges — a retired state trooper — has no such misgivings


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080301/ap_on_re_us/black_officers_pensions

racism still has a place in american society - that place is the state of georgia

[lonestarnot]

1. Well what kind of fucking response is "We can't fix everything for everybody?"

What IS that?

[KG]

2. a cop-out., so-to-speak.

[IowaGirl]

3. This is just sad.