Kennesaw Mayor Vetoes Pension-Cutting Measure

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Mayor Mark Mathews vetoed a city council decision to phase out pension plans and health insurance benefits for elected officials on Monday, the final day he was allowed to do so.

Mathews told the Marietta Daily Journal that he overruled the council’s 3-2 vote because he felt that future elected officials should have the right to choose whether to accept the pension and health insurance benefits. Mathews added that he’s begun investigating how best to reduce the vesting period for un-elected city workers to five years while simultaneously increasing the vesting period to five years for elected officials.

The council voted on July 6 to discontinue the practice of providing pensions and benefits to future elected officials, with council members Leonard Church and Tim Killingsworth opposing the measure. Councilwoman Cris Eaton-Welsh, who championed the measure, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that council members don’t have to pay into the plans, while regular city employees have to.

If the measure had stood, current council members would have continued to receive the pensions and benefits until their current terms expired; if they were re-elected, they would not have received pensions or benefits when their next terms started.

According to the MDJ, the it costs the city almost $50,000 a year to maintain elected officials’ pensions, which is the second highest such expenditure in the county.

The council can override Mathews’ veto, but four of the five sitting members must agree to the decision according to the city charter.

Eaton-Welsh told the MDJ that he was disappointed with Mathews’ veto, saying she’d have preferred the mayor exercise his veto power during the mosque controversy instead of using his “personal beliefs to override the will of the council.”