Escambia County lawsuit on controversial commissioner retirement program will go to trial
Escambia County's lawsuit against Clerk of Court and Comptroller Pam Childers over the county's local retirement plan for commissioners is heading to a trial after a judge denied Childers' two motions for summary judgment.
The lawsuit is over Childers' refusal to issue payments for Escambia County's controversial local retirement plan for county commissioners.
Childers argues the plan amounts to an illegal pay raise of 58.68% for the three commissioners participating in it. At the same time, the county contends the more than 20-year-old plan is legal, is the same cost to taxpayers as the Florida Retirement System, and that Childers cannot block the payments.
After having her own lawsuit against the county over the program dismissed, Childers had sought to end the county's case with two motions that respectively asked the judge to rule on the definition of compensation under Florida law and the interpretation of a key law the county cites for its authority to create the program.
Okaloosa County Circuit Court Judge William Stone issued two orders on Wednesday denying Childers' motion.
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In both orders, Stone said that for the motion to be considered, there cannot be any dispute of a "material fact" in the case.
With the two sides disputing the definitions of the laws, Stone said there was a material fact in dispute, so granting the motion was not appropriate.
The ruling clears the way for a bench trial before Stone, where he can make a ruling on the meaning of the law in question and whether Childers has the ability to block the payments.
Troy Rafferty, an attorney with the Levin Papantonio Rafferty law firm, who is representing the county in the case for free, praised Stone's rulings.
"The judge made a thorough analysis of law and everything that was argued and presented and came to the right conclusion, and that is, we need to have a trial," Rafferty said. "And we're going to have a trial."
Rafferty said he took the case to represent the county because he believes Childers' decision to withhold payments is motivated by "political vindictiveness" and that she is wasting taxpayer money with the legal fight.
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"I think the taxpayers need to know how much money the clerk is spending on lawyer fees, filing motions, and fighting this not paying rightful benefits under the law because of political vindictiveness," Rafferty said. "That's all it is."
Childers told the News Journal she is ready to go to trial because the issue reaches beyond Escambia County, and it will affect taxpayers in all local governments across Florida.
"As the clerk and comptroller, had I not said anything or raised the point of law, they would have voted themselves (more than) $250,000 in back pay," Childers said, referring to the 2021 proposal by Commissioner Steven Barry to provide backpay to commissioners and senior leaders who he said didn't know about the existence of the plan. "And they would have also continued to vote themselves a rate that increases (each year) and has increased to 59% to a private pension. Who in Escambia or who in the state of Florida gets a 59% pension? I know I might sound like a broken record, but it's so egregious."
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Escambia County's lawsuit against Pam Childers heading to trial
