Barrington fire officers lose pension lawsuit
Neither legislation nor litigation has proved successful for three Barrington Fire Department officers trying retroactively to boost their pensions.
The Illinois appellate court has ruled in Barrington's favor in a suit filed against the village by Assistant Fire Chiefs Char McLear and Chris Toussaint and Fire Prevention Officer Jim Feit. They sought to transfer credit for the early years of their career to a state firefighter pension fund.
In May, a bill that too sought to change the pension eligibility of these three and up to five others passed in the state Senate but stalled in the House.
Village officials lobbied against the change because they said it would cost taxpayers up to $1.8 million more in pension benefits if all eight people took advantage of it.
Both efforts sought to allow paramedics who worked for the village before 1995 to transfer their state municipal workers retirement credits into the firefighters pension fund they joined when Barrington created its first full-time fire department that year.
Attorney Jack Siegel, who represented the village, said the paramedics based their case on a 2004 statute allowing firefighters to make such transfers.
But the important distinction is that these three people were employed full-time by the village only as paramedics - not firefighters, Siegel said.
Feit, who began working for the village in 1975, and McLear, who joined Barrington in 1980, also happened to work for the village's paid-on-call fire department before the full-time department was established. But that work was never intended to provide for pension benefits, Siegel said.
"They were just wrong, as a matter of law," he added. "What can they do when they want to do one thing and the law says something else?"
The firefighters' attorney, Mary Spiegel, could not be reached for comment. It's unclear if the firefighters will appeal again.
But Siegel was skeptical the Illinois Supreme Court would hear the case, as he believes it involves no new issues of law.