A new municipal account will help finance future retirement benefits of city workers.
WESTFIELD — The City Council has approved the transfer of just over $2 million from city free cash and department surplus accounts to balance municipal financial records for fiscal 2012, which ended June 30.
Daniel KnapikThe transfers were requested by Mayor Daniel M. Knapik and include the creation of a new account to finance future city costs for benefits to retired city workers.
That $50,000 request, Knapik said, is the result of recent meetings with investment service firms such as Moody’s Investment Services.
“There currently is no obligation on the city and we are just trying to be a little proactive,” Knapik said Wednesday. The city currently provides an average of $7 million annually for municipal employment retirement, he said.
The mayor said the city is now working with an actuary who is reviewing retirement benefit costs include all revenue generating departments to determine the amount the city must fund annually for that purpose.
The council approved a $650,000 appropriation from free cash accounts to fund new municipal labor contracts that include a one-percent retroactive payment to employees to July 1, 2011.
Several transfers, about $23,000, within various municipal departments were also approved to cover that retroactive payment.
Also approved was $57,000 within the Health Department to pay for Twiss Street landfill services and $45,000 from various surplus accounts to balance others.
The city’s snow and ice removal account, in deficit as from the October snow storm and two other winter storms, was replenished with $838,349 from various municipal accounts.
Knapik also received council approval to transfer $387,318 from the free cash account to the municipal stabilization account.
Prior to the transfers and final approval of the city’s $125.7 million budget for fiscal 2013 which begins July 1, the city has $6.2 million in its stabilization fund and $1.2 million in free cash.