Employment – Public employment – vested pensions

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Wisconsin Supreme Court

Civil

Employment – Public employment – vested pensions

A CBA reducing government employees’ pension multiplier, prospectively only, did not breach the employees’ contract rights.

“We conclude that Milwaukee County did not breach the contract with Stoker when it amended the pension multiplier from 2% to 1.6%. The amendment did not breach Stoker’s contractual right to retirement system benefits earned and vested because it had prospective-only application to future service credits not yet earned, specifically, on and after January 1, 2012. We conclude that the legislature preserved Stoker’s rights and benefits already accrued but also gave Milwaukee County home rule authority with the flexibility to enact such prospective-only changes. We conclude that Stoker does not have a vested right to have the 2% multiplier apply to her then-unearned post-2011 service. In other words, Milwaukee County could so amend the formula and apply it prospectively because that prospective application does not ‘diminish or impair’ benefits accrued from service credits already earned. Because we conclude that Milwaukee County did have the ability to make these prospective-only reductions of the multiplier without Stoker’s personal consent, we need not address whether the Federation lawfully consented, on Stoker’s behalf, to the reduction.”

Reversed and Remanded.

2012AP2466 Stoker v. Milwaukee County

Ziegler, J.

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