Kennebunk Police Detective Steve Borst makes a point during a discussion last week about the upcoming Referendum B on the local ballot that would change the retirement plan for first responders from the current 25 years/50 percent pay to 20 years/50 percent pay. The select board, budget board, town manager, police and fire chiefs and Borst, the president of the Maine Association of Police Kennebunk local, support the measure. Tammy Wells photo

KENNEBUNK – At a time when it is difficult to retain and attract first responders – police officers and fire and rescue personnel – municipal managers and others say a proposal to sweeten Kennebunk’s retirement offering will help.

Voters will decide the matter Nov. 8 with Referendum Question B on the Kennebunk municipal ballot. It asks voters if they wish to offer Maine Public Retirement System Plan 1C, which provides a 20-year, 50-percent-pay retirement package to police and fire personnel. The current plan requires first responders work 25 years before retiring at 50 percent pay.

The 20-year/50-percent plan has the support of the town’s select board and the budget board, police and fire chiefs, and union personnel.

Police Chief Robert MacKenzie recalled that when he applied to be a police officer here in 1989, he was among 100 applicants.

“We went four months here with zero applicants,” he said during a recent conversation about the referendum. “We’ve never seen that before.”

It is an applicants’ market, and those who are interested in vacancies often call to obtain a copy of the union contract before applying. “That way, they can shop,” said MacKenzie.

When departments are down members – whether they’re at the police department or just across Summer Street at Kennebunk Fire Rescue –  it can mean mandated longer hours for those already employed. A steady diet of that mandate can see valued employees look elsewhere, where offerings may be better, managers say.

Steve Borst is president of the Maine Association of Police Kennebunk local and the union’s regional representative.

“We are very competitive on wages and we have great benefits,” said Borst of Kennebunk Police Department, where he has worked since 2013 after many years in Wells. He said adding a more competitive retirement package is key to retaining staff.

The department has made some other changes like trying out a new, six days on, three days off shift, rather than the six on, two off shift they had been working, to give officers more of a work life balance.

A map of York County provided by the police department shows Kennebunk and Wells as the only departments that offer the current 25-year/50-percent plan, though at least one community provides the 25-year plan to people hired after a certain date; those those hired earlier have the 20-year plan. Several municipalities offer the 20-year/50-percent plan. Still others offer different variations.

Kennebunk Police Department has two vacancies  at present – and they don’t want any more.

“We have a fantastic team,” said Borst. “We want to keep the people we have.” And, he said, “we want to be the place people want to go to,” when officers are looking for a department.

At Kennebunk Fire Rescue, which relies on per diem workers to augment full-time staff, full timers have been forced to work overtime when no designated per diem workers are available, said Fire Chief Justin Cooper.

“This can lead to frustration, fatigue, increased stress, lack of job satisfaction,” Cooper said in an email. “There is a direct correlation to cardiovascular and mental health as a result of these stress hormones and cumulative stressors. We need to be able to retain the members that we have and recruit more members to not only maintain staffing, but increase our staffing levels. Our retirement plan is not competitive with the overwhelming majority of fire departments in York and Cumberland counties.”

Cooper and MacKenzie said they want to attract the best candidates.

“This would greatly enhance our ability to retain the critical employees that we have and attract high quality candidates,” said Cooper.

The proposal would add about $79,662 to current retirement pension costs from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2023, and then about $159,000 annually for the next 15 years, for a total of about $2.3 million to the Maine Public Employees Retirement System. The question also contains a provision that would allow the town to bond the payment over 15 years, rather than pay the retirement system annually, which could potentially save some money. If the interest rate was 5 percent, an example used in the referendum, the annual extra levy would be about $141,000 rather than $159,000, and the total payback $2.1 million.

Pardue said the town realizes that the numbers are significant. He also pointed out that the costs of recruiting officers, sending new officers to the police academy for 18 weeks, a further 12 weeks of  field training, and outfitting officers can add up to a significant cost.

The impact on the property tax rate if the plan is adopted would be slightly over 5 cents, Pardue estimated.

If it is a question that sounds familiar, it is. It was asked in June and was rejected by 126 votes. The select board had recommended the program, but the budget board was opposed at that time. This time around, six members of the select board voted to recommend passage and one member was absent, while five members of the budget board voted to recommend, and two were absent.

MacKenzie noted the community annually makes investments in capital items like equipment.

“The human capital has got to play in here,” he said.