John Keane has retired, and Jacksonville city officials could not be happier.
While executive director of the Police and Fire Pension Board for 25 years, Keane has been a political musician -- playing politicians and bureaucrats like a violin and beating them like a drum.
Having known Keane for more than 50 years, I was not at all surprised. His tenacity is remarkable and he has a phenomenal memory.
He started as a records clerk in the Duval County sheriff's office in 1962. He went on to serve warrants, then transferred to the fire department, where he was the department's spokesman and also was involved in union business.
In the late 1980s, Keane led an effort to make the police and fire pension fund, then a small board, an independent authority. It was opposed by the City Council, mayor's office and editorial writers like myself.
Keane was not deterred. He went to the legislative delegation and persuaded it to support a measure that would make the pension fund independent. Then he retired as a firefighter and took a seat on the new board.
City Hall was not amused. One official threatened to evict the board from City Hall. Keane applied for a city pension and was told he was not a city employee. The infighting continued for three years and then Keane was made director of the board, with a staff of three.
Since then he has battled local politicians as he successfully fought to ramp up benefits for police and fire retirees. In the meantime, he was rewarded with a huge salary and benefits.
When he retired at 72 on Sept. 30 he was being paid $350,000. He stepped into a pension of about $270,000, which is in addition to the pension he already was drawing, plus Social Security. Oh, and he has a military pension from the Florida Air National Guard.
Then there is the payout for his unused leave time: about 800 hours at $140 an hour.
Some people thought that he was excessively rewarded for his public service. A local newspaper went ballistic. (Where had they been?)
But the fact is, all his benefits were approved by the responsible authorities -- as far as anyone knows -- and he made the required contributions. City Council is investigating and threatening a lawsuit. Unflappable, Keane is planning to travel out West with his two granddaughters.
The $1 billion police and fire fund has a $1.6 billion unfunded liability. Jacksonville politicians are scrambling to keep up. Taxes went up more than 3 percent this year. Other Florida cities are in the same predicament.
Public employee pay and benefits nationally have become a huge problem. Federal employees now make 78 percent more than those in the private sector. Politicians love to make promises to please employee union bosses but are reluctant to pay for those promises.
One can't blame Keane for trying to improve his standard of living like everyone else on Earth. The problem is politicians who can't say no.
Lloyd Brown was in the newspaper business nearly 50 years, beginning as a copy boy and retiring as editorial page editor of the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville. After retirement he served as a policy analyst for Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
