Supreme Court sides with union in giving Milwaukee County employees $6.8 million pension benefit
MADISON - The Wisconsin Supreme Court delivered a victory Tuesday to a group of Milwaukee County employees, allowing them to take advantage of early retirement benefits that county officials say they didn't mean to give them.
The 5-2 decision is expected to worsen the county's long-term pension liability by $6.8 million, according to a 2016 report. That would force the county to contribute more than $800,000 a year for 20 years to cover the liability.
In Tuesday's decision, two of the high court's conservatives — Justices Rebecca Bradley and Dan Kelly — sided with its three liberals, Justices Shirley Abrahamson, Ann Walsh Bradley and Rebecca Dallet. (The Bradleys are not related.)
Two conservatives, Chief Justice Patience Roggensack and Justice Annette Ziegler, dissented.
The ruling came as the County Board prepares to vote Thursday on pension changes aimed at addressing a separate pension issue — overpayments to retirees.
Tuesday's decision dealt with how to handle pension benefits in the era of Act 10, the 2011 law that sharply limited collective bargaining for public employees.
Soon after Act 10 was adopted, the County Board modified its "rule of 75" option that allows certain employees to retire with full pensions if the combination of their age and years of county employment add up to at least 75.
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The 2011 changes did not apply to employees who were covered by collective bargaining agreements. At the time, the county did not have a contract with employees represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 48.
County officials contended the union employees didn't qualify for the new pension benefit because the county and union had to abide by the terms of an expired contract while they negotiated a new one.
The union sued that fall to make its case that its members qualified for the benefit. A Milwaukee County judge ruled in the union's favor in 2016 and an appeals court ruled in its favor in 2017.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed with the lower courts.
"The county urges the court to interpret 'not covered by the terms of a collective bargaining agreement' to mean 'not represented by a union,'" Rebecca Bradley wrote for the majority. "Because we must apply the plain meaning of the ordinance's text rather than rewrite it to reflect what the county may have intended, we reject the county's request and affirm the Court of Appeals."
The ruling extends the rule of 75 to union employees who were hired before 2006. A ruling for the county would have limited the benefit to employees hired before 1994.
In dissent, Ziegler wrote that the county constructed its pension ordinance in a way that made it clear the rule of 75 was meant to apply to only some union employees.
"Simply stated, certain terms of a (labor contract) may have significance even after a (contract) has expired," she wrote.
Mary Spicuzza of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
Contact Patrick Marley at patrick.marley@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @patrickdmarley.