The Executive Board of the Little Rock FOP held an election from April 17 through April 20 and passed their amendment to their Constitution and Bylaws that will allow them to charge retired police officers dues for the privilege of remaining as active members of that organization.  The dues for the retired members are half of one percent of a starting patrolman’s salary and the active duty officers will continue to pay a full percent of that same salary.  That amendment passed by a vote of 93 for the amendment and only 36 opposed to it.

That vote was no surprise to me because the executive board told everyone that “[t]he National FOP has approved these proposed amendments” thus, giving their active duty membership no reason to oppose the change.  I have also heard that some on the executive board even claimed to active duty officers that the LRFOP was only doing what other organizations such as the Elk’s Lodge and others do to collect membership dues from everyone who votes and that their retired officers may actually come into a Lodge meeting, establish a quorum, and take over the operation of their Lodge.  Of course, that last statement sounds very scary to any active duty police officer who may have heard it, despite the fact that it is blatantly untrue.

While other fraternal organizations such as the Elk’s lodge or others may not offer any retired benefits to their membership, they are NOT the Fraternal Order of Police that has always stood for much more than those organizations because no one is actually an “Elk” but all of us are or once were “Police.”  When I retired from the LRPD many years ago, I was told that I would ALWAYS be an active member of the LRFOP after my retirement just as many other officers were told the same thing upon their retirements. Thus, I simply assumed they were paying my small membership dues to the State and National Lodge to maintain my active status in the FOP although I never attended any LRFOP meetings.  However last year after actually attending a meeting in the hope of facilitating communications between retired and active duty members, I learned the LRFOP was not paying my State and National dues so I then paid the $21.50 for my annual membership in both organizations.  Now, after this latest vote, I will also have to pay the LRFOP half of what other LRFOP active duty members pay in dues or approximately $190 a year to the LRFOP to maintain my State and National membership in the FOP.

Of course to the rank and file officers of the LRFOP, having their retired membership pay just half of what they pay in dues may sound like a good deal to them but it does not to me for the following reasons.  According to the last FOP contract with the City of Little Rock, a starting patrolman’s salary is $38,000 per year and goes up within 6 months and continues to increase annually until they reach the top pay of $57,026 after eight years of service.  Thus, the cost of their dues remains fixed at their lowest salary as their actual salaries increase with each passing year until they reach retirement at approximately 77% of their final salary after 28 years of service with an automatic three percent (3%) cost of living adjustment under the LOPFI retirement system which was not available when we retired.  As you know under our old retirement system, we only retired at 50% of our final salary and had no cost of living adjustment.  Thus, our pension membership is retired at an annual average pension of only $24,000 per year that will never increase and constitutes a disproportionate disparity in the dues required to maintain our retired FOP membership in the LRFOP at a rate of $190 per year that will undoubtedly increase as the salary of a starting patrolman increases over time.

Additionally, I performed a “Google” search of local FOP organizations across our nation and read their constitution and bylaws when available to discover that only one of those lodges reviewed had a similar provision to the LRFOP requiring their retired officers to pay the half a percent in dues but that particular agency’s retirement system had always been similar to the LOPFI system and had a built in cost of living adjustment that our retirement system lacks.  All the other local FOP lodges reviewed either charged their retired officers between $15 to $50 annually for dues or paid the dues of their retired membership to the State and National FOP completely which allowed their retired members to remain in their lodge without the need to pay any dues at all.  Thus, it seems quite clear to me that the Executive Board of the LRFOP was looking for the most expensive method possible to charge us dues to remain as active members in the LRFOP.  Of course, the executive board claims we can still be “honorary members” without paying any dues but ANYONE, regardless of past law enforcement experience, is eligible for “honorary membership” in the LRFOP if their nomination is approved and any “honorary membership” that may be approved can just as easily be taken away without providing any right to appeal that decision to the State or National FOP Lodge.

As for the ability of our retired membership to obtain a quorum at any particular LRFOP board meeting, I suppose that may have been remotely possible if we could have obtained enough retired members to actually attend a meeting because the LRFOP board meetings are generally not attended by but a few of their active duty membership for obvious reasons; however, that idea never even occurred to me or any of our retired membership because we have more honor and intelligence than to even contemplate such an underhanded process that obviously would be easily overturned at a later meeting.   In the past year even I have only attended three of those LRFOP meetings and was only joined by up to two other retired members on one occasion that would clearly not represent a “quorum” of even their small board.  Thus, that ridiculous claim was only intended to create fear in the minds of their active duty membership and obviously served no other legitimate or logical purpose.

So why did the LRFOP Executive Board unanimously take this action?  Was it because we were likely to take over their Lodge?  No, in addition to the reason provided above, we only had 36 members who even voted in the last election and the LRFOP has 468 total active duty members so there is absolutely no chance for that to occur.  Was it because they simply couldn’t afford to operate their Lodge without the money from our new additional dues?  No, because the LRFOP with 468 current members would receive approximately $178,000 per year from their active duty members’ dues alone and they have no other expenses except for the utilities at the Lodge that we built and provided to them debt free.  Even assuming we have 100 retired members in the LRFOP, which I believe would be an exaggerated number, the cost of paying our dues to the State and National lodge would only be $2,150 a year and they currently have over $364,000 in their combined LRFOP accounts and receive more money each month from their active duty officers’ dues.  They even routinely donate $1,000 to active duty officer’s children to sponsor their baseball teams or other childhood events yet still they refuse to honor their word to their own retired officers.

Thus, the only true reason that we must now pay these new dues to the LRFOP can be none other than the fact that the LRFOP Executive Board desired to punish their retired membership for finally exercising their rights guaranteed in the LRFOP Constitution and Bylaws to vote for the elected representatives of their choice for that executive board in the past two elections, which is a right that ANY “member” of any organization has the right to perform.  You may remember that as a result of our exercise of that right, the Executive Board of the LRFOP first attempted to simply deny retired officers the right to vote in such elections but later discovered from the State and National FOP Lodge that their attempt at doing so was unconstitutional.  As a result of that ridiculous effort, they have now amended their Constitution and Bylaws to charge us an exorbitant fee for that privilege which they are certain will ultimately result in most of us simply declining further active membership in the FOP and thereby force us to become only “honorary members” that have no rights or actual membership in the FOP because most of our retired officers simply cannot afford that exorbitant fee on their very limited retirement.

Perhaps, the more important question to be answered for the rank-and-file officers of the LRFOP is why their retired members all of a sudden showed any interest in the LRFOP in the first place after being silent for so long?  The answer to that question is quite simple to understand but I doubt it was ever conveyed to the LRFOP active duty membership.  The only reason we took an interest in the LRFOP was to simply ask our brothers and sisters for their assistance with our police pension contract with the City of Little Rock that was in serious financial trouble due to the City’s false promises over the past 90 years.  While we did not ask for any financial assistance from the LRFOP, we were hoping to obtain their better name recognition for our cause and access to the excellent National FOP Lodge research performed on various police issues including retirement.  However, the President of the LRFOP at that time had made several erroneous statements to his membership and ours about the intentions of our pension board that caused many on our Board to doubt that assistance and resulted in my subsequent attendance at a LRFOP meeting in an effort to facilitate better communications between our two organizations and eventually lead to my recommendation of support for the opponent of the President in their upcoming election for office.  All that information was provided to our membership in a previous article on this website that you can review again HERE.  Now, all the threats of retaliation against our retired membership that were made by that former LRFOP President have come to fruition, despite the fact that he denied them in his comment posted under that article.  Thus, this is a very sad day in the annals of the LRFOP but it is NOT one of our own choosing.

Finally in my last article on this topic, I offered to start a new statewide Retired Police Officers’ FOP Lodge for our retired membership and now wish to also state that my ONLY intention or aspiration in making that offer is to provide our membership with a cheaper means of retaining their membership in an organization we all respect, the Fraternal Order of Police.  If you too want to join that new statewide Retired Police Officers’ FOP Lodge to retain your active membership in the FOP that would allow us to seek assistance from the State and National FOP on retirement issues, please send me an email at sryoung24@gmail.com or call me at 501-920-1574 so that I can include your name in the list of proposed members.  It is my understanding that ANY retired police officer can join this new FOP Lodge so even if you were NOT a member of the LRFOP at your retirement, you can still join this new lodge provided you can verify that you retired from some recognized law enforcement agency and have not been convicted of a felony.

While I think I previously had the ten officers needed to start this new FOP Lodge, I am asking again for you to submit your name because the more names we can get the better our new Lodge will be.  I shall update this article with the names of anyone who intends to join so check back often.  So far, the persons who submitted their name for membership after my last article include:

Steve Archer, David Goodson, Don Wood, Jerry Best, Scott Stubenrauch, Brian McClung, and Clem Papineau.

If any of the above retired officers have changed their mind about joining, just let me know and anyone else who wants to join, just send me an email or give me a call because on Saturday, May 5, 2012, I have arranged a meeting with State FOP President Alan Hamby who will meet with all of us at Denny’s on Shackleford Road  at 10:00 hours to explain the process of creating our new Lodge in greater detail and at that meeting we should all be ready to pay whatever dues may be decided upon as necessary to achieve that purpose as well as filling out any necessary paperwork. While the only dues required for the State and National Lodge will be $21.50 a year, I recommend we each contribute another $10 per year to keep the new Lodge bank account from going bust after the payment of the State and National dues because most banks will not keep any account open that maintains a zero balance.  Perhaps, after our first year of existence, the new Lodge can hold a get together at Denny’s or somewhere else and maybe even pay for a meal for our membership with the $10 collected in additional dues so that we can all stay in touch.  I will send out a reminder email to all those who have previously expressed interest as well as those who email or call me about their interest in joining the new Lodge and I look forward to seeing all of you at Denny’s on Saturday, May 5, 2012, at 10:00 hours!

Also Interested:

Phil Jones
Monty Vickers
Horace Walters
Jim McDaniel
John Lawrence
Dean Riggin
Tim Daley

On December 20, 2011, I attended the LRFOP meeting that was conducted by Vice President Everett Hooper when President Bart Simpson and Secretary Tommy Hudson were unable to attend that meeting.  Also present were approximately a dozen active duty LRPD officers including State Lodge President Allen Hamby.  I haven’t previously reported on this meeting because I have been very busy with the Christmas season.

I attended that meeting expecting that the issue of retired member’s rights in the LRFOP would be on their Agenda after I wrote my last article concerning that issue on this website that lead to the State Lodge President declaring that their Executive Board’s attempt to ask for a vote of their membership on that issue was unconstitutional under the National FOP Constitution.  Consequently, the LRFOP is currently in the process of rewriting their Constitution to comply with the National and State Constitutions in that area.

While that issue was apparently NOT on their Agenda for discussion, I brought it up anyway because I believed it was important to our pension membership and explained that I had contacted State Lodge President Allen Hamby about this issue because I did not believe the vote being proposed by the LRFOP Executive Board was authorized under the National FOP Constitution and I was concerned that this vote could strip me and other retired members of our rights in the LRFOP that was unfair and improper.

The LRFOP Executive Board assured me that they DID want their retired membership to have a place in the LRFOP and that they will continue to offer their retired members the option of enjoying the privilege of LRFOP lodge membership as an “Honorary” member free of charge, but in the future, anyone who wants to be an “active” member with full rights in the FOP will have to pay LRFOP dues apparently because they believe it is warranted if we wish to have “voice and vote” in the LRFOP.  They also explained that they will be sending each of their retired membership a letter explaining this issue and the various options available to their retired officers very soon because they recognized that many where not aware of the need to pay National and State dues and to announce this new requirement for “active” membership.

When I requested to know how much those dues may be, Past-President John Gilchrist told me that, at that time, they were looking at only charging retired officers half the amount they charge their active duty membership or approximately $15 per month but that no firm determination of the amount to charge their retired members has yet been made.  In response to that statement, I reminded them that most of their current retired membership live only on the small police  pensions provided under the old retirement system that has no automatic cost of living increase, such as is authorized under the LOPFI retirement system, and recommended a reduced amount for those retired members.

Since that meeting, I have had the time to give what was said during that meeting some additional thought.  It would now appear that the past promise of allowing retired members to remain in the LRFOP as “active” members by only paying their National and State dues without the need to pay any LRFOP dues will soon become a thing of the past, if what Mr. Gilchrist mentioned is adopted.  Unfortunately, such a suggestion is totally within the LRFOP ability under the National and State FOP Constitutions but, of course, they will have to put that matter to a vote of their membership to obtain such a change in their Constitution that I expect will pass such a vote  because that matter would only affect their retired membership and many active duty members are not cognizant of the fact that, one day, they too will be retired although with much better pension benefits than we have including an automatic cost of living increase provided under the LOPFI retirement system.

Personally, I might have been willing to pay up to another $20 per year for the luxury of being an “active” member of the LRFOP but I quite certainly have no desire to add an additional $180 a year to my expenses to achieve such membership and, in my opinion; I am not very interested in an “honorary” membership as being an honorary member would only allow access to lodge functions that I don’t use anyway and would NOT provide me with the ability to claim FOP membership without paying the new LRFOP dues for retired members.  I strongly suspect that obtaining our failure to pay those retired dues is the true objective of the LRFOP Executive Board anyway so that they can use that excuse to kick us out of the FOP while still providing us with the seemingly generous opportunity to stay, where we are apparently not really wanted, as nothing more than “honorary” members.

Consequently, I have contacted State FOP President Allen Hamby about the possibility of starting a Retired Police Officer’s FOP Lodge.  He told me that it is certainly possible but that such a lodge would have to admit ANY retired officer in the State and could not be limited to only LRPD retired officers.  He also stated I would only need ten (10) retired officers who wished to join the new lodge to get it started but that a person can only be a member of one FOP lodge at a time and that anyone who joined the new Retired Lodge could NOT also be an “active” member of their old local lodge; however, given the strong possibility of our having to pay LRFOP dues, I do not really see that as much of a problem.  While he didn’t mention anything about “honorary” lodge members, I suppose any new lodge member could remain as an honorary members in their old local lodge if they wished because ANYONE can be an “honorary” member of a lodge regardless of law enforcement experience.

Because I have already contacted the required number of retired LRPD officers who expressed an interest in forming such an FOP lodge, I believe that option is a viable alternative for our retired membership who wish to keep their FOP membership active by paying only the $21.50 a year in State and National dues and perhaps another $10 per year to be able to have some funds available to do the necessary paperwork, maintain a new lodge checking account, and pay the National and State dues that must be paid only by that lodge, without totally emptying our checking account, to keep the Retired State FOP Lodge going for our retired membership even though such a lodge would be open to law enforcement retirees anywhere in our State.

The cost for the ten retired officers to pay their annual National and State FOP dues is only $215 per year and with the additional $10 per year would only be another $100 for a grand total of $315 per year for all ten officers.  Those same ten retired officers would have to pay a total of $1,800 per year if they remain as active members of the LRFOP and the LRFOP charges $15 per month for a retired member’s dues.   I can’t recall if they said the National and State dues would be paid from that amount but, if not, that would add another $215 to that total bringing that cost to $2,215 per year.  Of course, starting a new FOP lodge would mean that the founding members would have to reach a consensus of opinion on the membership of a new “executive board” but I do not believe that would be a problem as many of the officers contacted also expressed an interest in serving in that capacity to get the new lodge started.

Thus, if the LRFOP wants us to pay such dues for the privilege of remaining as active members of the LRFOP, I am ready, willing, and able to form our own Retired Officers State FOP Lodge for our retired police officers to join.  The option of starting a Retired Officers FOP Lodge may be the best thing that could possibly happen for us anyway because our retired interests are not always consistent with active duty interests and being a member of a new State FOP Lodge would probably provide us with more influence at the Arkansas State Legislature on various retirement issues then we now have as well as providing us with greater access to the vast resources available from the State and National FOP.  At the very least, we would all know that our membership in such a lodge was truly appreciated and welcomed.

Let me know if you too are willing and ready to join in that effort by commenting below about your possible desire to join a new Retired FOP Lodge or emailing me at sryoung24@gmail.com!

The Little Rock Fraternal Order of Police (LRFOP) has proposed a change to the LRFOP Constitution and By-Laws for a vote of their membership that would deny the rights of any retired member to his or her current rights to the “benefits” of the lodge, the right to vote on any issue before the LRFOP, as well as the right to hold any elective LRFOP office.  In effect, this amendment, if passed, would appear to kick all LRPD retired members out of the LRFOP and, by association, out of the State and National FOP as well because, without “benefits” and “vote,” what possible good could there be in continuing your retired membership in that organization? [Read more...]

I know this short article has nothing to do with our Police Pension Fund but I thought it may help some of our more budget conscious members.

A  little over a year ago, I was behind a vehicle at a red light waiting to go to a local K-Mart where I intended to buy one of my grandchildren a birthday present when I noticed the vehicle ahead of me had a license tag that said “Vietnam War Veteran” at the bottom of the tag and had a decal for the Air Force beside the plates numbers.  Because I had never noticed such a tag before and the fellow driving that vehicle had also pulled into the K-Mart parking lot ahead of me, I followed him and parked beside his vehicle. [Read more...]

As many of you are undoubtedly aware, the Little Rock Police Pension Board has engaged in numerous attempts to increase our police pension funding from State and City government in an effort to improve the poor financial condition of our pension fund due to the fact that our fund has been designated a “projected insolvent fund” that is capable of collapse within ten (10) years as has been reported for the past two years by the Arkansas Fire and Police Pension Review Board (PRB). [Read more...]

I recently received a questionable opinion or memorandum from the City Attorney’s Office that causes me to wonder if the Little Rock City Board of Directors is receiving adequate legal counsel.  Now, I know that one memorandum cannot possibly prove or disprove such representation but because the ten (10) members of the current city Board of Directors, excluding the Mayor, has only one person with any legal background, it seems apparent to me that they must almost totally rely on the City Attorney’s advice on such legal issues that affords the City Attorney with the opportunity to greatly influence their determinations on a multitude of City issues, including the issue causing my concern that I shall somewhat explain below: [Read more...]

Many of you may have read my article “A Revealing History of Our Underfunded Police Pension Plan” in which I explained our pension plan’s funding problems created in the past by Little Rock city government.  However, there is yet another big funding problem that is associated with the LOPFI retirement system that I feel compelled to mention even though I have not been able to convince all my fellow Board members that it even exists.  This is the second in my three part series of articles on our pension funding problems with the last article to be on my suggestions for possible resolutions to those problems. [Read more...]

As many of you know from reading the newspapers and watching television, the City of Little Rock has proposed a new 1 cent sales tax that, according to a new City Resolution, is intended to pay our fund $500,000 annually if passed.  However, the passage of a City Resolution is not enforceable or binding as we all learned after the 1993 passage of another City Resolution that claimed the City would assist our pension fund financially if that need should ever arise as it undoubtedly has after our fund was declared a “projected insolvent fund” by the State’s Pension Review Board.  Even if the sales tax passes and the City honors their stated intent, the payment to our fund will do NOTHING to increase our pension benefits and will actually cost a third of our membership an estimated $140 a year out of their fixed income that many existing on only $1,115 per month cannot afford. [Read more...]

On Wednesday, August 2, 2011, the police members of the Little Rock Police Pension Board held a press conference at 3:00 pm at City Hall.  During that press conference, Farris Hensley gave a brief presentation explaining why we believe the City’s sales tax proposal does not represent “responsible” city government and explained why our sales tax proposal filled that need before we responded to reporters’ questions. [Read more...]

to my fellow pension members:i recently had a phone conversation with farris and advised him that due to family obligations i would be unable to attend the meeting at training on the 8th.i expressed to him that should a vote be considered or taken;he had my permission to vote as my proxy for whatever the membership decides.as one of the “little rock 9″that is still actively paying in it scares me that with retirement less than a year away no one can say with any certainity that there will be a pension 5,10,or even 25 years down the line.it is almost with criminal intent to defraud our membership that the city has underfunded the pension all those years.although i have not always agreed with everything the pension board has done in the past that did not or does not mean that i dont support our postion”keep the fund solvent”.i have not always been good in expressing what im trying to say,but felt that my support could be shown through this letter and not through my absence on that monday. robert lusk