– Among the business discussed at the monthly meeting of the Henderson Town Council was the retirement system for police officers.
The Municipal Police Employees Retirement System (MPERS) advised the mayor by email that the town is in arrears with payments that were supposed to be deposited into the retirement fund for the police department.
“I knew nothing about it,” said Mayor Sherbin Collette, “and I reached out to other mayors and they knew nothing about it either.”
Mayor Collette said in 2013 the legislature established that each po- lice officer must put 10 percent of their pay into the system and the town must pay 35 percent.
“That is ridiculous,” the mayor said. “We have eight officers and I figured out that the town would lose $300,000 per year. I am not going to let this town go bankrupt over this.”
The mayor added that each time a police officer is hired, the officer must enroll in MPERS, but has the choice to opt out the next day.
The mayor also said that he and the town attorney would be going to Baton Rouge to discuss the issue with MPERS.
The council voted to transfer $24,072.75 from the sales tax fund to the water sector program. The mayor said that the Henderson match for the program is approximately $1.33 million and that this transfer was part of that match.
Retirement
In other business:
•The council gave the mayor the authority to sell, to the highest bidder, three police cars deemed impossible to fix.
•The mayor will meet with St. Martin Parish Code Inspector Rodney Richard concerning a trailer and two apartments that are considered non-livable.
•The town donated $10,000 to the fire department.
