By Mayor Bryan Nelson

The three Apopka pension funds representing fire, police and general employees comprise one of the most effective ways that the city attracts the best of the best employees.  

Many large cities and counties have used their pensions as piggy banks, robbing them of assets needed to fund retiree pensions and instead using them for everyday expenses. But unlike many pension plans across the country, ours is one of the most secure and well-funded, with an average across all three funds of over 90% funded.  

Six years ago, the city’s policy was to base our rate of return on a 7.25% overall rate, which means we expect to collect 7.25% more every year on average. A couple of down years were offset by a couple of better years.  

In my years in Tallahassee, we reduced our rate of return by .25%, which cost the state more than $400 million, but it shored up the finances for the state’s FRS Retirement system.  

Six years ago, the city did the same thing, reducing our rate of return from 7.25% to 7% to make sure our retirees were protected in case of a severe market downturn. Although this cost the city several million dollars, we were putting our pension plans in great financial shape.  

More and more analysts are now recommending that all pensions reduce their pension rate of returns down to 6.75% because of the market volatility, and Apopka is meeting the challenge. We have started a five-year plan to take down the rate of return from 7% to 6.75%. We will do this five basis points at a time, which will protect those who have served the city of Apopka and make sure they do not have to worry whether the check is in the mail.  

Our city employees are the best, and the retirement plans are our way of saying thank-you for serving the residents of Apopka.