Columbus Council considers changing law to resolve controversial and delayed appointment

The majority of the 10-seat Columbus Council appears ready to change a city law that would help retired police officer Byron Hickey accept the controversial and delayed appointment to fill the governing body’s vacancy.

Despite the Columbus Consolidated Government’s pension board declining June 13 to recommend a proposed amendment to the CCG employee pension plan, the council is scheduled to vote July 9 to do exactly that.

The CCG charter considers councilors to be part-time employees — and they are paid like it, earning around $22,000 per year. But they have the option to participate in the city’s health insurance plan, and about 8% of their pay automatically goes to the pension plan because the it considers councilors to be full-time employees.

If Hickey accepts the council’s appointment to serve as the District 1 representative, current city law would suspend his pension. This proposed amendment would allow Hickey or any other CCG retiree to still receive their pension payments while serving on the council.

When the amendment was presented during the June 18 council meeting, several councilors spoke about the issue. Since then, the Ledger-Enquirer tried to contact each councilor to find out whether they will vote yes or no and why. Combining their public comments during that meeting and what they told the L-E, only one councilor has expressed concern about the amendment. Hear are their responses:

Glenn Davis of District 2

Davis is listed as the sponsor of the amendment, but he emphasized it was written by the pension plan attorney.

Answering why the amendment makes an exception for retired city employees who want to serve on only the council instead of any elected office, Davis noted all the other elected CCG officials receive full-time salaries.

“In this case, the class of people we’re talking about, if they want to serve on this council, they would be losing money to the tune of 10, 12, $16,000 a year,” Davis said during the meeting. “Who’s going to do that? Nobody’s going to do that. They can’t make ends meet. But if you get a salary where you’re making 85, 100, 150 (thousand), I think that’s far more than what we’re talking about as far as being able to hang on to your pension.”

Davis said the amendment allows “a class of people who have served our city well, who have experience, knowledge, that they need their pension, but they want to serve as well, but they can’t because they can’t survive without their pension. It’s simple, but it’s the right thing to do.”

Bruce Huff of District 3

Huff is the only councilor who expressed concern about the amendment during the meeting or to the L-E.

“I understand there’s no impact to the pension, but I think we are basically solving one problem and going down a rabbit hole because we’re going to limit the people who can run for public office,” Huff said during the meeting. “So you’re picking and choosing. As long as they’re running for city council, then we’re fine?”

Huff added, “Everyone who has a pension needs their pension, regardless of how much it is. … We have a lot of talented people that have been with this government for 25, 30-plus years. If they wake up one day and want to run for one of these (other) seats because they decided they want to serve their community, how do we not allow them to run when we’ve done it for city council?”

Toyia Tucker of District 4

Tucker told the L-E she will vote yes “because city council is a part-time position, making $22,000, and the other (elected) positions are full-time. … I’ve spoken to several people who possibly want to run for a city council seat, but they receive a retirement check (from the city). If your retirement check is $36,000, you’re giving up $14,000. That’s crazy. I don’t think that’s right.

“This would be opening it up for more individuals who have government experience to serve on city council. We should afford the opportunity to those individuals without doing any harm regarding their pay.”

Charmaine Crabb of District 5

Crabb told the L-E she will vote yes for three reasons:

“1. It will not hurt the pension plan going forward, in fact we have been told it may help it.

“2. City Council gets paid below minimum wage, so a retired employee pulling a pension should not be hurt financially in order to serve when it can be so easily resolved. This is not the case for any other elected position, they are paid a living wage.

“3. Other retired employees can work part time within the city and still be paid their pension.”

Walker Garrett of District 8

Garrett told the L-E he will vote yes because “it is prohibitive to our retired city employees to force them to give up their retirement income they earned in order to earn an essentially part time salary on city council.”

Other councilors

Gary Allen of District 6, Joanne Cogle of District 7 and Judy Thomas of citywide District 9 didn’t speak about the amendment during the meeting or answer the L-E’s query before publication.

This was the last meeting on the council for Tyson Begly of citywide District 10. Travis Chambers won the runoff election to replace Begly, who was appointed after John House resigned in April 2023 spend more time with his ailing wife.

The swearing-in date for Chambers hasn’t been announced. The L-E didn’t reach Chambers before publication to find out how he would vote on the amendment if he were sworn-in before or at the July 9 meeting.

The council voted 6-3 May 28 to appoint Hickey. Davis, Tucker, Crabb, Cogle, Garrett and Thomas voted yes. Huff, Allen and Begly voted no.

Begly won’t be on the council for the July 9 vote on the amendment, but he spoke in favor of it during the June 18 meeting.

“City council is a bit different because it’s a part-time role, even though it’s defined as full-time in the pension plan, and we’ve got a bit of an urgency here,” he said. “I think it makes sense for the pension board to review from a holistic, comprehensive point of view, but while they do that, I think we can go ahead — because time is of the essence for the city council role — make a change for this specific city council, and have the pension board review overall and come back with a more comprehensive solution that addresses all elected official offices.”

Mayor Skip Henderson, who votes on the council only to break a tie, said during the meeting that the pension board “sort of resolved that this was more of a political issue than it was an actuary issue. So they kind of pushed it back out to the political arena, which is this council. They will not be picking that back up again.”

More background about Byron Hickey controversy

Nobody mentioned this conflict in city law when the council appointed Hickey on May 28 to succeed the late Jerry “Pops” Barnes and fill the remaining two years of the four-year term. Barnes, who died April 14 at age 80 from an undisclosed illness, was the District 1 representative on the 10-member council for 17 years.

A week after he was appointed, and the same day the city’s probate court judge swore him into office, Hickey received an email from CCG human resources director Reather Hollowell informing him that his city pension would be suspended while he served on the council because the city’s pension ordinance considers councilors as full-time employees, despite the charter treating councilors as part-time employees.

That’s why Hickey’s other half of the swearing-in process, the one that was supposed to be conducted by a superior court judge at the June 4 council meeting, was indefinitely postponed. But nobody would explain why at that point.

At the June 11 council meeting, two of Barnes’ children criticized the six councilors who voted to appoint Hickey. They refuted the narrative that Barnes was mentoring Hickey to be his successor.

Allen had nominated one of Barnes’ children, licensed professional counselor Simeone “Simi” Barnes, to fill her father’s seat, but the council didn’t vote on that motion because a majority already had approved Hickey.