The city of Sulphur is asking the Louisiana Municipal Association to evaluate and compare its different retirement systems.

City Council members unanimously approved a resolution for Mayor Chris Duncan to ask the LMA to assess the municipal employee, firefighter and police systems.

Duncan said he hopes the LMA’s evaluation will provide a way for the city’s contribution to the retirement funds to remain the same, rather than increasing annually.

“Over the past several years, employer contributions have increased substantially to (the retirement systems),” Duncan said. “In an attempt to sustain employer contribution … the city is requesting the LMA investigate and compare cost savings, efficiencies and investment performance with other state-managed retirement systems.

“We are trying to get a control on the accounts and get them stabilized.”

Duncan said the retirement accounts pay 17 cents for every dollar paid to municipal employees, 24 cents for every dollar to the firefighter retirement fund, and 31 cents to the police fund.

He said the contribution to the municipal employee retirement system rose 1.75 percent last year; fire rose 4.25 percent, and police stayed the same, but is expected to rise to about 45 percent within the next five years.

Contributions to the retirement funds come out of the general fund, which has a projected $67,881 deficit for the current fiscal year and a proposed $184,165 deficit for the 2014 fiscal year.

“As these numbers continue to increase, we have things that have to suffer,” Duncan said. “Capital projects suffer, equipment suffers, and possibly employees.”

Duncan said the city is asking the LMA to look at different alternatives for the system because “the more the city has to contribute, the less money the city has to operate on.”

Sulphur Mayor Chris Duncan. (American Press Archives)

Karen Wink