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Regular City Council Meeting <br />September 8, 2003 <br />Page 11 <br />Mr. Huff said that many of the city employees were concerned and he did not <br />want to say anything against the Fire Department, but would like for this to be <br />considered at another time. <br />Councilman Bell said that has never been a consideration on his part and he did <br />not think it has for the other members of the council. He did not know where <br />they are going with it, but he finds it interesting that they can start those rumors <br />and have this type of turnout based on false information. Councilman Bell said <br />the Fire Department is a separate issue on their overtime. He said he would like <br />to look at the Police Department, as he finds a lot of problems in that particular <br />allocation of funding and he has talked to Chief Louis about it. Councilman Bell <br />felt they needed to start on this type thing right after they get this budget started. <br />Councilwoman Neeley stated that she may have caused this when she talked <br />about bringing the firemen up to what they gave the other employees last year. <br />She stated that it was her thought that it would put all city employees on an equal <br />basis regarding their retirement, but it was not her intention to cut anything from <br />the retirement. <br />Mr. Huff said it was his understanding that the firemen contributed 10% of their <br />salary and the city matches that with an additional 10%. He said that if the city <br />would let him contribute 10% of his salary to his retirement fund and the city <br />matched it, it would be great. Mr. Huff said they wanted to see if the Council <br />was talking about changing the Manager's proposed balanced budget with a <br />4.3% raise for every employee, but if they are talking about making <br />modifications to that, is it true those modifications will result in a higher salary <br />increase than 3.4% per employee. <br />Gene Anderson came forward advising the Council that the maximum that an <br />employee can contribute to TMRS is 7% and it has to be approved by the City <br />Council. <br />Councilman Bell said they could go to a 7% contribution, allowing the employee <br />