The Mehlville Fire Protection District Board of Directors will consider placing two tax-rate-decrease proposals on the April 7 ballot and approving the district’s 2009 budget when it meets this week.

The Board of Directors will meet at 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 23, in the Conference Room of the district’s headquarters, 11020 Mueller Road.

Board of Directors Chairman Aaron Hilmer told the Call he will ask the board to put before voters a proposal to permanently reduce the district’s general-fund tax-rate ceiling and a proposal to permanently reduce the district’s pension-fund tax-rate ceiling.

The board also will consider approval of the district’s 2009 budget. Approval of the 2009 budget was delayed by the recent settlement of a nearly 3-year-old legal dispute over changes to the district’s pension plan.

Board members voted unanimously Dec. 30 to approve a settlement agreement with Local 1889 of the International Association of Fire Fighters that ended litigation initiated by union employees in March 2006. Local 1889 filed the lawsuit just days after the Board of Directors voted on March 16, 2006, to adopt an amendment and two resolutions changing the pension plan from a defined-benefit plan to a defined-contribution plan.

The board’s vote to approve the settlement agreement came two weeks after the Eastern District of the Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed an August 2007 ruling by St. Louis County Circuit Court Judge Thea A. Sherry that dismissed the lawsuit filed against the board by Local 1889.

The settlement pact calls for the district to make contributions to the defined-contribution plan for the period from April 1, 2006, to Dec. 31, 2008, with years of service calculated with an effective date of Dec. 31, 2008. All employees hired before March 31, 2006, will receive contributions for 2008 based upon gross wages. Those with less than 15 years of service will receive 22.5 percent; 15 to 19 years, 24.5 percent; 20 to 24 years, 26.5 percent; and 25 or more years, 30 percent.

For 2009 and future years under the defined-contribution plan, employees with less than 15 years of service will receive contributions of 8 percent; 15 to 19 years, 9 percent; 20 to 24 years, 10 percent; and 25 or more years, 11 percent.

Regarding the tax-rate-decrease proposals, Hilmer and board Treasurer Bonnie Stegman had voted in January 2007 to place Proposition TD, or Tax Decrease, on the April 3, 2007, ballot. But Concord resident Dennis Skelton filed a lawsuit Feb. 7, 2007, seeking the removal of the tax-rate-decrease measure from the ballot. Skelton, who ran as a write-in candidate for the fire district Board of Directors in April 2007, was defeated by Ed Ryan, who now serves as board secretary.

In a Feb. 9, 2007, ruling, Judge James R. Hartenbach ordered the Board of Election Commissioners to remove Proposition TD from the April 3, 2007, ballot.

But as a result of legislation signed in July by then-Gov. Matt Blunt, the Board of Directors now has the authority to place tax-rate-decrease measures before voters.

That legislation, Senate Bill 711, was sponsored by former state Senate President Pro Tem Michael Gibbons, R-Kirkwood.

As for the 2009 budget, a preliminary 2009 budget that projected revenue of nearly $18.1 million and expenditures of roughly $19.3 million — a deficit of more than $1.3 million — was unanimously approved by the board in August.

The preliminary 2009 budget anticipated total revenue of $18,074,111 with projected expenditures totaling $19,381,403 — a deficit of $1,307,292. The district would not go into the red, however, but dip into its reserves. That projected deficit resulted from the district’s new No. 2 firehouse, which is under construction at 5434 Telegraph Road in Oakville.

Though the board has yet to approve the 2009 budget, a 2-percent salary increase for 2009 for administrative staff and cross-trained firefighter/paramedics was unanimously approved Jan. 8 by the Board of Directors.

“… These were laid out when we adopted our preliminary 2009 budget along with our tax rate back in August of ’08,” Hilmer said. “The reason we’re having to talk about them again is because I’m tardy in getting our final ’09 budget approved, so we need to get these things approved so payroll is able to operate. And what we laid out in August is the same thing we have now — it’s the administration building and then the people who are employed as cross-trained firefighter/paramedics to receive a 2-percent pay increase for ’09.”

In a separate matter, an amended 2008 budget with expenditures totaling roughly $21 million and revenues of nearly $19.5 million recently was adopted by the Board of Directors.

The district’s amended 2008 budget calls for expenditures totaling $21,019,271 with revenues of $19,448,464 — a deficit of $1,570,807. That deficit primarily is a result of the litigation involving the district’s pension plan and the transition from the previous defined-benefit pension plan to the new defined-contribution plan, according to Hilmer.

Of the deficit, Hilmer told the Call, “(It’s) all attributed to the pension fund. It’s because of the lawsuit and the transition between the old plan to the new plan. And over the next year, until we get to the end of 2010, you’re going to see some other wild swings …”

Excluding pension-fund expenditures and revenues, the amended 2008 budget calls for total expenditures of $16,328,748 with revenues of $16,431,751 — a surplus of $103,003.

The original 2008 budget adopted in December 2007 had projected revenues totaling $20,541,463 with expenditures of $20,471,222 — a surplus of $70,241.

The amended 2008 budget projected a beginning fund balance of $21,090,669 on Jan. 1, 2008, and ending fund balance of $19,519,862.