Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Municipal Compensation Pensions topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Lewisville officials review pay study, consider switching TMRS COLA to non‑retroactive method
Summary
City staff presented a compensation and benefits update including market pay data and a recommendation to shift the Texas Municipal Retirement System cost‑of‑living adjustment from a retroactive to a non‑retroactive calculation; council was briefed on the potential budget and retiree impacts.
Lewisville city staff on Tuesday told the City Council the city is tracking progress toward a market‑competitive pay structure for public safety and other employees and is considering a change to how retiree cost‑of‑living adjustments are calculated under the Texas Municipal Retirement System.
Human Resources Director Ted Fosse led the presentation, describing external market data for police, fire, dispatch and general government positions and two budget scenarios the city is evaluating. "We show up on a lot of these lists and I think as time has gone by, we are actually showing up more on them," Fosse said, citing improvements in published rankings for starting police pay.
Fosse told the council the city has targeted a "market plus" approach — aiming for the top third of comparable cities — but is also modeling a lower "modified market plus" option to reflect budget constraints. He said last year Lewisville moved police starting pay roughly 5.73% and firefighters about 6.2%, and that the city now ranks closer to its peer group on some measures.
On retiree benefits, Fosse reviewed TMRS and the technical difference between the current retroactive COLA and the alternative non‑retroactive COLA allowed by recent state law. He explained that non‑retroactive COLA would apply the same percent increase to all retirees in a given year (for example, roughly 2.02% using a 70% of CPI example cited in the presentation), rather than calculating varied retroactive increases based on years retired.
Fosse said a city model (noting the model data is roughly 11 months old and will be updated) shows switching to non‑retroactive COLA could reduce the city's TMRS employer contribution rate by about 0.75 percentage points, lower the unfunded actuarial liability by about $4.3 million and reduce next year's employer cost by about $656,000 in the scenario shown. He also said the change would lock the city into maintaining the 70% COLA multiplier while allowing the non‑retroactive method.
Fosse provided plan counts and benefit figures from the staff analysis: 592 retirees currently receive TMRS payments and the median monthly retiree benefit in the dataset is about $1,916; the illustrative median change to retirees in the upcoming year was about $2.50 per month under the model shown.
The presentation framed the change as more equitable and more sustainable for long‑term plan funding; staff told council they plan to return with current actuarial numbers and with a proposed ordinance in September to make a non‑retroactive COLA effective Jan. 1, 2026 if council so chooses.
Council discussion included questions about step schedules, how quickly employees reach top pay steps compared with other cities, and the budget timetable; no final ordinance was adopted at the meeting.
The city indicated staff will update the TMRS cost estimates in the coming weeks and incorporate the results into the fiscal year budget process before returning to council with any ordinance or resolution for adoption.
