A dispute over Mat-Su Borough emergency services workers retirement benefits has been settled out of court. According to the Borough, nine workers involved in the dispute will be paid a total of $160,311 plus attorney fees.
Mat-Su Borough manager John Moosey says the Borough admitted no wrongdoing.
“We don’t believe the Borough’s in the wrong, but a settlement avoids the uncertainty of a trial, and avoids the negative impacts to our Borough operations.”
The dispute over retirement eligibility began when the Borough revised its definition of “employee.”
The Borough signed on to the state’s PERS retirement plan in 1968.
During the 1970s, Borough EMS workers were volunteers, later on becoming part time, or full time paid workers. A couple of years ago, the Alaska Division of Retirement and Benefits asked the Borough to reclassify it’s employee categories. Moosey says the nine plaintiffs disagreed with the Borough’s recent categorization, which did not entitle them to retirement benefits, and they sued.
Moosey says the settlement leaves no possibility of appeal.
APTI Reporter-Producer Ellen Lockyer started her radio career in the late 1980s, after a stint at bush Alaska weekly newspapers, the Copper Valley Views and the Cordova Times. When the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound, Valdez Public Radio station KCHU needed a reporter, and Ellen picked up the microphone.
Since then, she has literally traveled the length of the state, from Attu to Eagle and from Barrow to Juneau, covering Alaska stories on the ground for the AK show, Alaska News Nightly, the Alaska Morning News and for Anchorage public radio station, KSKA
elockyer (at) alaskapublic (dot) org | 907.550.8446 | About Ellen
