Mayor and City Council of Memphis, TN

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Memphis Division Bilding

225 N. Humphrey Blvd., Suite 3000

Good Morning…

             Please consider this letter a request to investigate and bring criminal charges against the Mayor  and the City Council of Memphis, TN.  The reason for this request is  according to the City Charter and the City Ordinances, the City is required to make certain contributions to the City Employees Pension Fund and they have not been making these contributions REQUIRED by law.  As you can see by the enclosed excerpt from the Actuarial Report by Pierce, Waterhouse, Coopers, LLP, they are contributing a much smaller percentage than they are required to… 

             City codes 4-28-7 (1978 plan) and 4-24-7 (1948 plan) define the City’s obligation and further state in subsection B:  “The payments of the City into the trust fund under this section are made OBLIGATIONS of the City.  The Council shall appropriate annually such amounts as are necessary to make  such payments”

             It further states in subsection C  “All such contributions made to the trust fund shall be used to fund benefits under the 19xx plan or to pay expenses of the 19xx plan and shall be irrevocable…”

             City codes 4-28-9 (1978 plan) and 4-24-9 (1948 plan) prohibit the City from having any right or claim to the trust fund contributions by stating:  “The City  SHALL NOT have any right, claim, or interest in the trust fund or in any contributions made to the trust fund, and this 19xx plan may not be amended to use the trust fund for any purpose other than the  exclusive benefit of the participants and, where applicable, their spouses or children”…

`            Funds from the REQUIRED contributions have been “borrowed” to fund pet projects of City Council members and/or their family and friends.  Most of these projects have cost millions more than the projected total and the expense has been paid by the Tax payers of the City.  It is our opinion that this constitutes theft, not only from the Retirees of the City, but the Citizens as well…

             Most of the citizens of Memphis are not concerned about the management of the City.  It is the mismanagement of the available funds that is the problem. If we all paid our obligations like the City does, we would all be homeless.  It’s time the “elected” officials start doing their jobs and stop stealing from the people.

             Employees of the City have worked in good faith and under a contract negotiated by their unions.  The City has ignored, for the most part, anything and everything they were supposed to do to honor those contracts. 

Now, they want to take away our health insurance coverage or pay 100% of the premiums which is over $1600.00 a month for family coverage.  Many of the older retirees don’t even receive that much in their pensions.  In a nut shell, the City is telling us we can have our pensions  OR health insurance, but , we can’t have both.  That is not what was promised  Plus the fact that a lot of these retirees have never worked under social security so they won’t even have that to fall back on.  This is not only unfair, IT IS CRIMINAL.

             Please look into this situation and restore the benefits we have worked and paid for over the years.

                                                                                                                                  Thank you,

                                                                                                                                  Concerned Citizens \

Enc. Signed petitions, excerpt from City Charter and Ordinances.

Cc:  Tennessee Attorney General, FBI Washington, DC.