Milwaukee County reverses course second time, OKs officer's retirement
Kevin Nyklewicz is back on track to retire from the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office.
Nyklewicz, at age 52, will begin receiving pension checks in May from the county retirement plan services office, he said. His last day on the job is Friday.
A few weeks ago, a retirement office worker blew up those plans with a last-minute announcement that a February 2016 approval granted by the office was made in error and he would have to work more than two years longer.
Given the litany of bureaucratic errors that has become routine at an office now subject to a massive, independent audit, acting Corporation Counsel Margaret Daun agreed on March 5 to review his file and decide which of the two decisions — the February 2016 green light or the February 2017 red light — was made in error.
Nyklewicz, a deputy inspector in the Sheriff's Office, signed his pension papers Monday after Daun reversed last month's decision and declared he was eligible under the county retirement plan's rule of 75.
The rule allows some workers to qualify for retirement when the combination of their age and years of employment equal 75. Partial years are rounded up.
So Nyklewicz, several months past his 52nd birthday and with 22 years plus nine months of service, satisfies that part of the rule. The pension office worker who stepped in last month to deny his retirement had misinterpreted other complicated criteria of the rule, officials said.
It is uncommon for employees of private companies to retire before age 62, and private sector retirement plans generally don't allow pension distributions before age 62, so Nyklewicz said he didn't expect a lot of public sympathy for his earlier predicament.
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Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele has hired Baker Tilly to conduct an audit of retirement plan services. The company will work alongside auditors from the comptroller's staff to determine the extent of payment errors among nearly 8,200 pension checks issued each month.
Former retirement plan services director Marian Ninneman lost her job in early February after failing to correct an ongoing overpayment to one person that amounted to $140,000 over several years. She had been informed of the mistake three years earlier but ignored it.
Three months earlier, the county paid out $11 million to make up for pension underpayments to nearly 1,300 retirees. Total payments for those miscalculations soared to more than $14 million by the end of last year, records show.
Nyklewicz became a sheriff's deputy in June 1994 and he was promoted to sergeant in 1999. Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. promoted him to captain in 2005. He was appointed a deputy inspector, a member of the command staff, in 2009. Most recently, he was assigned to the County Jail.
Nyklewicz declined to comment on whether he had been questioned by authorities investigating deaths of three inmates and a newborn infant at the jail in 2016. The district attorney's office has asked for a six-person inquest jury to hear testimony in connection with the dehydration death of an inmate, Terrill Thomas, in April of last year.
Nyklewicz said he would not comment on whether he had been compelled to appear before an inquest panel.
Last last year, Milwaukee County auditors started a review of medical care at the jail and the House of Correction provided by a Florida company under contract to the county.
Don Behm can be reached at don.behm@jrn.com and twitter.com/conserve.