Members of the Trumbull Police Union AFSCME Local 1745 accomplished a rare feat. After losing their defined benefit pension plan in 2014 they won their pensions back. Through persistence and cooperation with town leaders they not only restored a secure retirement for all members, but also played a vital role in protecting the future of their department by retaining experienced officers.
Since the Great Recession in 2008 there has been a gradual trend of municipalities cutting their pensions for municipal employees, especially police officers. Trumbull was no exception. When Local 1745 started contract negotiations in 2011, the campaign to eliminate their pensions had already begun. A year prior Tim Herbst won the election for First Selectman and campaigned on eliminating pensions.
“Taking away pensions from municipal workers, especially cops and firefighters, was the political flavor of the day, not just in Trumbull but across the state and nationwide,” said Detective Sargent Bobby Coppola, a 24-year Trumbull police officer who served as President from 2006 to 2022 and is currently union treasurer.
Local 1745 leaders realized the threats to their pension were serious when the town proposed two options for their 2011-2015 contract negotiations: give up pensions for new hires or accept a 15% reduction in all current pensions, 6 - 7% increases in contributions and a change in calculations from highest percentage to last three years of average salary.
“We tried to negotiate and come up with different ideas, but the town was adamant about it,” Coppola said. “Bottom line after it was all said and done it was a political decision to take away our pensions.”
Since the Local was put between a rock and a hard place, the only thing they could do was minimize the effects of the town’s actions. First, they settled in mediation to save current members from having highly reduced pensions and also secured raises and extra holiday pay. Secondly, Coppola and other executive board members convinced the town to not implement the new 401(a) until the last year of the contract; so rather than going into effect in 2011 they pushed it off until July 1, 2014. Lastly, Police Chief Thomas Kiely with the foresight that recruitment and retention of their department would be impacted by pensions changes swiftly hired more police officers to ensure they could be fully staffed for a few more years.
Once Trumbull officers started to retire from the force a few years later and new officers were hired the consequences of those pension decisions began to take effect. According to current Local 1745 President Sgt. Brian Federowicz, 16 Trumbull officers resigned over the last four years to work with other departments that offered pensions. At one point they were down 25 officers out of their 70-member bargaining unit due to resignations and various types of leave.
“It's frustrating when you're putting all this time and effort to train this person, to make them the best police officer, and then all of a sudden they resign and go somewhere else.” said Federowicz. “It starts to wear out the officers.”
The loss of seasoned officers has taken a toll on the entire department. Gradually fewer qualified candidates applied, and more and more officers have been ordered to work nonstop double shifts because of shortages. All of this was entirely preventable.
“We told the town that people are not going to be apt to put an application into Trumbull when at least 8 surrounding towns still have pensions,” said Coppola. “We saw other police departments become a jump off for other departments when they switched to 401(k)s. We said, ‘Maybe not in the immediate future, but in the next 10 years we're going to have problems with retention. We're not going to be able to compete.’ And sure enough, that happened.”
Local 1745 never gave up in their pursuit for their pensions to be restored. The tide began to turn when new town leaders came in such as First Selectwoman Vicki Tesoro. They worked closely with the Tesoro administration which discovered that bringing back a defined benefit pension plan was not only feasible but affordable. At the end of 2023 the Trumbull Town Council voted unanimously to restore the police pension plan.
Members of AFSCME Local 1745 Trumbull Police Department in Nov. 2017 at a funeral for fellow Ofc. Michael Borucki who passed away from cancer.
A decade ago, Local 1745 leaders strongly cautioned Trumbull elected officials that eliminating their pension would harm the police department. Those predictions became a reality but can serve today as a lesson to other towns that any reduction or removal of pensions has serious pitfalls that can take several years to reverse.
Pension opponents in Connecticut often backed by corporations and billionaires, such as the Connecticut Yankee Institute, remain vocal and steadfast in their attempts to dismantle public employee pensions. Coppola and Federowicz are just a few of the chorus of police officers and public employees pushing back on their rhetoric to protect pensions, including Council 4's Political and Legislative team of Brian Anderson and Zak Leavy who continue to fight at the Connecticut State Capitol for legislation that would require all municipalities to offer pensions to police officers.
“If you want to retain the best qualified people working for public safety, the best thing to do is offer a pension because that’s the best security and retirement. Pensions attract the best-qualified candidates,” Coppola said.
Federowicz agrees. “If you put all these years into public service, you should be rewarded. A pension is…the appreciation from the town to thank you for your years of dedicated service.”
