COUNTYWIDE : Retirement Board, County Delay Deal

Members of the County Retirement Board and the county’s top administrative leadership have struck a tentative deal that would balance the budget, but several issues remain unresolved and the Retirement Board delayed taking action Tuesday.

“We just need more time to work a couple of things out,” said Murry Cable, the county’s deputy administrative officer, who met for nearly an hour in closed session with members of the Retirement Board. “There aren’t any disagreements. It just will take a little more time.”

Retirement Board members noted that they have no substantive objections to the memorandum of understanding tentatively struck with the county government. That memorandum commits the county to paying for medical benefits of retired workers in return for a reduction in the amount of money that the county contributes to the retirement system every year.

That move would save the county general fund about $13.4 million this year, Cable said. The Board of Supervisors already has included that money in its budget, so if no deal is finally agreed to, more cuts would have to be made in county programs to make up for the loss.

Neither side in the long-running negotiation between the county government and the Retirement Board predicted that the delay would have that effect. But the county had hoped to have a deal finalized by early October, and that now seems unlikely.

“I think it’s going to take longer than that,” said Robert Thomas, a member of the Retirement Board and former county administrative officer. “They’ve got plenty of work to do.”