Council hears staff briefing on FY27 pay, retiree benefits and long-term cost risks

Council members on April 28 received a detailed staff briefing on the county executive’s proposed FY27 compensation and benefits package and spent the remainder of the session asking staff and union representatives for clarifications ahead of straw votes next week.

"In total, the executive's budget as well as the agency budgets recommend about $4,900,000,000 in compensation costs, which is a 4.5% increase from FY26 to FY27," said Mr. Howard, a member of council staff who led the presentation. Staff said compensation and benefits constitute roughly 70% of tax-supported spending and emphasized the multi-year fiscal implications of staged benefit changes.

The briefing outlined negotiated pay adjustments the executive negotiated with represented groups — roughly 6–6.5% for several unions — plus a set of salary-schedule adjustments for deputy sheriffs and correctional officers. Staff estimated a FY27 combined cost of pay and benefit adjustments of about $54.4 million, with an annualized impact of about $65.0 million when staged elements are fully annualized. Staff also reported the executive’s recommendation to add 119 tax-supported full-time equivalents in FY27, a 1.3% increase from the approved FY26 FTE level.

The presentation described changes to retirement and deferred-compensation programs. Staff said the executive proposes increasing county contributions to the Retirement Savings Plan/GRIP from 8% to 9% in the near term and to 10% by January 2028, and raising employee contributions as part of the negotiated compromise. Staff estimated partial-year FY27 costs for these modifications and projected full implementation obligations of $12.8–$14.5 million by FY29.

Staff also highlighted a proposed change to longevity and pension eligibility for public-safety employees that would advance a longevity increment and remove a minimum age requirement for a 25-years-of-service retirement tier. Council staff requested actuarial analyses to quantify downstream pension and retiree-health costs; one preliminary analysis indicated that an incentive to shorten service before retirement could increase FY27 pension and health costs in the near term.

Union representatives and council members pressed staff on implementation and policy trade-offs. "The GRIP is not a guaranteed pension plan," said Gino Ren, representing the local union, and described the negotiations as intended to create retirement security closer to a defined-benefit outcome after years without a countywide pension for many employee groups. Council members raised concerns about multi-year fiscal sustainability and noted that some costs — notably shifts in teacher pension responsibility from the state — have already increased county obligations. Staff said the state shifted roughly $27 million in unfunded teacher-pension liability into the county government budget recently and cited a total of about $120 million in teacher-pension costs that are now embedded across county and school budgets compared with a decade ago.

Council members asked for additional detail ahead of next week’s straw votes, including: - A roster and explanation of the roughly 119 proposed new FTEs, distinguishing positions funded by grants, mandated by recent legislation, or otherwise projected to pay for themselves. - A department-level breakdown of the vacancy/lapse assumptions baked into the budget and the methodology OMB used to estimate net vacancy savings. - An actuarial analysis of how proposed longevity and pension changes for public-safety employees would affect pension contributions and retiree-health obligations.

Staff said the council will have separate votes on non‑collective-bargaining items and on the negotiated collective bargaining agreements in a multi-day series of meetings next week.

The council recessed and will take straw votes beginning Monday ahead of formal action on the FY27 operating budget.