Mayor proposes vision, dental benefits as early retirement incentive

KINGSTON, N.Y. » The city would pay the full cost of dental and vision insurance for eligible employees who take advantage of an early retirement incentive being considered by the Common Council.

Kingston Mayor Steve Noble told the council’s Finance and Audit Committee at a virtual meeting Wednesday evening that he and city Comptroller John Tuey had been working on a retirement incentive with the Civil Service Employees Association. Noble said the incentive could save the city money and help stave off layoffs that might otherwise be made as a result of revenue losses Kingston is facing due to the ongoing COVID-19

pandemic.

“We worked collaboratively with CSEA to come up with a retirement incentive that we think could help move some employees who were considering retiring in the next few years — to move up their retirement so that it could help us prevent the type of drastic permanent layoffs that we could end up seeing due to the economic crisis unfolding here,” Noble said.

If the council ratifies the agreement at its July meeting, members of the CSEA who are at least 55 years old and have a minimum of 10 years of full-time continuous service with the city as of Dec. 31, 2020, could take advantage of the early retirement incentive.

The incentive would provide the employees and their families, if they are enrolled in a family plan, with dental and vision insurance at no cost.

Retirees currently do not receive dental and vision insurance from the city.

Under the proposal, the eligible employees would have to notify the city by Aug. 1 of their intent to retire. The retirement would have to take place by Dec. 31.

The CSEA is the city’s largest employee union. It includes employees in public works, parks and recreation, building safety and other departments.

Noble said the incentive would have a cost to the city, but he said it would be manageable in the long term.

“We had to strike a balance with the financial situation that we’re in,” Tuey said. He said the city had to offer an incentive that was appealing to potential retirees, but it could not afford to provide cash payouts that were typical of previous retirement incentives.

The cost of dental and vision insurance is approximately $900 per year per employee, Tuey said. He said that would be paid out over time rather than a cash incentive that would be paid in a lump sum.

The incentive would not set a precedent with the union under its contract with the city, Tuey added.

Noble said the offer of a retirement incentive would not be official unless the council votes its approval at the July session. He said 36 employees would be eligible for the incentive but that he does not yet know how many might take it.