The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS — After months of bickering, Dallas Police and Fire Pension trustees put on a united front Tuesday and agreed to provide survivor benefits to same-sex spouses.
Other than a brief exchange in which a City Council member told the board’s attorney to “can it,” the motion went forward without public discussion. The board — with five members missing — quickly voted 7-0 to change its definition of a spouse to reflect marriages recognized in Texas “and any other state.”
Those four words meant peace of mind to several LGBT cops and firefighters. Tuesday’s special meeting happened less than two weeks after the regular board meeting in which the board’s majority shot down motion after motion that would have extended the benefits. But some trustees received backlash from rank-and-file cops and firefighters after that meeting for voting against the measures.
“It was really nice to see our fellow workers have our back,” said Monica Cordova, a police officer who was speaking as a member of the pension system.
Cordova, who is gay and is legally married in Massachusetts, attended Tuesday’s meeting with her 14-year-old son. She said she was thrilled with the changes.
Board Chairman George Tomasovic, a Dallas Fire-Rescue battalion chief, said in a written statement that the vote “was the right thing to do” in part because “it resolves a long-standing issue of fairness that has frustrated many of our members.”
“We understand that this has been an emotional issue and we thank our members for the patience they showed as we worked to resolve it in a positive way,” he said.
LGBT pension members originally made a push for the change in October. They tried to get a membership vote on adding the four words then, but were rebuffed by the board.
Supporters argued that a 2013 Supreme Court decision requires pension funds to recognize same-sex marriages under IRS rules.
When the changes came back up again at the Feb. 12 meeting, the board’s majority repeatedly voted against most solutions. Vice Chairman Dan Wojcik, a police sergeant, unsuccessfully moved to halt all discussion of the change until after the U.S. Supreme Court rules again on same-sex marriage laws, which is expected by this summer. He and other trustees noted Texas law still bars same-sex marriages.
After that meeting, Wojcik posted an explanation for his no votes on a Facebook page for Dallas Police Association members. In the post, he suggested the four City Council members who serve on the board had ulterior political motives and aimed “to further weaken this fund.” He urged patience, but was met with rebukes by officers. The post has been removed.
Last week, the City Council voted to make the same change to the city Employee Retirement Fund after City Attorney Warren Ernst’s go-ahead. Ernst gave his opinion Tuesday to trustees that federal law requires them to offer benefits.
The pension board gave its approval with only a few minutes of strife between council member Philip Kingston and pension fund attorney Josh Mond, who has held a different legal interpretation of the rule change.
When Mond tried to question the wording of Kingston’s motion, the council member, who is also a lawyer, told the attorney to “can it.”
“There’s no ‘wait, wait, wait’ from you, Josh,” Kingston said. “That is not how the board operates, dudes.”
But after another closed session, all members present voted for Kingston’s motion — even Wojcik.
The vote puts Dallas on equal footing with other Texas cities, including Fort Worth, Austin, Houston and Plano, which all offer same-sex pension benefits to all city employees.
Council member Lee Kleinman said the city attorney’s opinion and an unexpected level of support from officers and firefighters swayed his fellow trustees.
Kleinman had become a de facto leader on the issue for both the Employee Retirement Fund and the police and fire pension.
“I got more and more passionate about it the more I dug into it,” he said. “I started to realize that the more people pressed against me, the more I pushed the other direction.”
Kingston described Tuesday’s vote as “wonderful.”
“We’re just lucky that nobody died and had this issue come up,” Kingston said. “With police and firefighters, the bad guys and fires just don’t care if you’re gay or straight. And we need to make sure that we recognize that and treat them equally.”
Copyright 2015 The Dallas Morning News