General Employees v. City of North Miami Beach , 151 So. 3d 1271 ( 2014 )

Third District Court of Appeal
State of Florida
Opinion filed December 3, 2014.
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
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No. 3D14-887
Lower Tribunal No. 13-34654
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General Employees Retirement Committee,
Appellant,
vs.
City of North Miami Beach,
Appellee.
An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Gisela Cardonne
Ely, Judge.
Sugarman & Susskind and Ivelisee Berio Lebeau and Robert A. Sugarman
and Michael Anthony Gillman, for appellant.
Lewis Longman & Walker and Andrew J. Baumann and James W. Linn, for
appellee.
Meryl Robin Porter, for amicus curiae American Federation of State,
County, and Municipal Employees, Local 3293, AFL-CIO.
Before SALTER, FERNANDEZ and SCALES, JJ.
SALTER, J.
The General Employees Retirement Committee (the “Retirement
Committee”) appeals a final summary judgment upholding a City of North Miami
Beach ordinance amending the terms of the City’s pension plan. The Retirement
Committee maintains that, in amending the pension plan, the City failed to comply
with a condition precedent established in the City’s own previously-enacted
ordinance. We affirm the trial court’s conclusion that, as a matter of law, the City
had no such obligation.
Ordinance 2013-15, the Alleged Condition Precedent, and the Lawsuit
City Ordinance 2013-15 was adopted to implement two changes to the
City’s Retirement Plan for General Employees. First, the ordinance adopted
certain changes to the Plan embodied in the most recent collective bargaining
agreement between the City and the labor union representing its general employees
(American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Local 3293,
AFL-CIO (“AFSCME”)). Second, the ordinance deleted a longstanding provision
of the Retirement Plan establishing a condition precedent to any amendment:
Section 1.05 AMENDMENT OF PLAN
(a) Resolution of City - The Plan may be amended by the City
from time to time in any respect whatever, by resolution of City
Council of North Miami Beach, specifying such amendment, subject
only to the following limitations:
(1) Approval of Participants – Approval of 66-2/3% of the
active participants shall be required before the Plan may be amended
by the City Council.1
2
“Active participants” in the Retirement Plan included then-current
employees subject to the AFSCME-City collective bargaining agreement, but it
also included employees represented by another union and unrepresented
employees, as well as former employees, none of whom were subject to the 2013
collective bargaining agreement. The City maintained that the approval
requirement in section 1.05(a)(1) of the Retirement Plan was an improper
delegation of the City Council’s authority to a minority of the active members of
the retirement plan, impermissibly infringing on the collective bargaining rights of
the City and the AFSCME union, and jeopardizing the sound actuarial position of
the Retirement Plan.
Following the City’s execution of the collective bargaining agreement and
the enactment of Ordinance 2013-15, the Retirement Committee formally voted to
disapprove the Ordinance because of its purported elimination of the 66-2/3%
approval condition. The City filed an action for a declaratory judgment upholding
the Ordinance, and both the City and the Retirement Committee filed cross-
motions for final summary judgment. The trial court granted the City’s motion and
denied the Retirement Committee’s, and this appeal followed.
Analysis
1 The percentage approval requirement was set at 75% in 1989, and reduced to 66-
2/3% in 1998.
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Benefits payable by the Retirement Plan are constitutionally mandated to be
funded on a sound actuarial basis. Art. X, § 14, Fla. Const. The City is permitted
to adopt prospective amendments to the Retirement Plan, and to collectively
bargain for such changes, consistent with its budget.2 Florida Sheriffs Ass’n v.
Dep’t of Admin., 408 So. 2d 1033 (Fla. 1981). A provision requiring a referendum
of electors to ratify a collective bargaining agreement, as a condition precedent to
its enforceability, violates the rights of municipal employees and the City to
bargain collectively. Art. I, § 6, Fla. Const.; City of Miami Beach v. Bd. of Trs. of
the City Pension Fund for Firefighters & Police Officers in the City of Miami
Beach, 91 So. 3d 237 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012). In the present case, the purported
approval requirement was in the hands of a minority of the active members of the
retirement plan rather than a minority of the electors, but the effect and result are
the same.
Further, a municipality has broad home rule powers to legislate. Art. VIII,
§2(b), Fla. Const.; § 166.021, Fla. Stat. (2013). As the City had the authority to
enact the condition precedent contained in section 1.05 of the Retirement Plan
(putting aside the constitutional infirmity described above), the City had the same
undivided authority to eliminate that condition. If the condition precedent had
2 Section 1.06 of the Retirement Plan authorized the City to unilaterally terminate
the Retirement Plan by written notice without the 66-2/3% approval requirement, a
far harsher medicine than the changes adopted in Ordinance 2013-15.
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been imposed by Florida statute or municipal charter provision, the analysis might
be different.
For these reasons, the trial court’s final summary judgment is affirmed.
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