Changes to possible state-mandated healthcare benefits for retired police officers occupied a chunk of the discussion at this month’s meeting of the Kenton County mayors group.
The meeting took place Saturday morning at the Kenton County Government Center in Covington and was the group’s final meeting in 2024. Specifically, the discussion focused on the possibility of police officers who come out of retirement to receive a stipend to help them pay for healthcare benefits.
Although no official policy changes have occurred yet, the development is one in a long line of discussions and changes related to Kentucky police officer benefits, which have occurred in the face of recruiting woes among Northern Kentucky’s police departments.
Many of the updates came from Pat Morgan of the Kenton County Sheriff’s office, who reported on meetings he’d recently attended in Frankfort.
“When you bring somebody back as law enforcement [with] the cities and the counties, it’s prohibited by statute to give them any kind of benefits,” Morgan said.
Some police officers choose to come out of retirement to continue working or to bolster their income, often in jobs that are less demanding than conventional patrol jobs, such as school resource officers.
A lack of benefits, healthcare or otherwise, can serve as a disincentive to become a police officer in the first place and to return to work after retirement. Moreover, depending on when the retiree began their work as an officer, they may not be eligible for comprehensive healthcare benefits under Kentucky’s state pension system.
Today, police and other state pensions are split into three tiers. Tier 1 applies to workers hired before Sept. 1, 2008. It kicks in after 20 years of service and pays out defined benefits based on the length of one’s career. This means that retired officers under this plan are guaranteed a certain payout upon hanging up their uniforms.
For those hired after Sept. 1, 2008, pension maturity periods were extended from 20 years to 25 years, but they still had defined benefits similar to tier 1. Workers under this system are classified as tier 2.
Then, beginning on the first day of 2014, pensions were switched from a defined benefits plan to a kind of hybrid cash contribution plan, now referred to as tier 3, which applies to anyone hired after that date. These plans are similar to 401(k) plans and other individual retirement accounts: Officers contribute consistently over a period of time to an investment pool that yields returns upon retirement. Payouts are based on the amount of cash contributions workers make divided by state-managed actuarial factors.
Although a worker’s age and the type of service performed are accounted for in the actuarial calculations, such plans rarely yield the same payouts as traditional pension plans. This has blunted one of the primary means by which departments attract recruits.
Officers in tier 1’s B level are beginning to retire, Morgan said, and because many of them are only in their 40s, they may want to come back to work as school resource officers or in similar positions. As it stands, however, the state’s family health insurance plan puts them on the hook for about $16,000 a year out of pocket.
“So, that’s going to it will drive the numbers down about coming back because they’re going to go somewhere where they can find employment, where they can get health insurance,” Morgan said.
The details of the bill is still in the works, Morgan said.
Morgan also said they’re may changes to training requirements, such that recruits may have more options to get their required training hours done. He also talked about the impending opening of a new state police academy in Madisonville, which is slated to open early next year. The new academy should help deal with the state’s long training backlog.
“As soon as that new academy opens up, they expect to reduce wait time,” Morgan said.