La Gaceta: Tampa police chief's 'retirement' plan is a huge raid of taxpayers’ money

Tampa Police Chief Lee Bercaw is in the DROP program and set to retire in September, 2024, but the City of Tampa is bending over backwards to game the system.

The mayor wants to give him an “employment agreement.” He would be a “contract employee” able to “exercise the duties and responsibilities of a reserve police officer” in the capacity of “chief of the Tampa Police Department.”

The City is manipulating the system to allow him to collect his $96,000 a year retirement pay while the City pays him $241,000 a year as a “contract employee,” which is a big raise over the $204,672 he makes currently. According to the city's website, “reserve officers” are “non-compensated.”

The City would give him benefits, such as annual leave, health insurance, sick pay, cost of living increases, pay bump tied to annual performance and reimbursement of expenses. The City won't contribute additional money to his pension fund.

On the first day of his new employment agreement, he will be credited with 240 hours of annual leave and 240 hours of sick leave.

The estimated cost of this contract is $723,000.

This is a huge raid of taxpayers’ money for a police chief whose value is questionable. He's only been chief since December 2022 and was at the helm during the mass shooting in Ybor City last year that resulted in two deaths and 16 people being injured on the Halloween weekend.

We have seen video of nine TPD officers standing in a circle off 7th Avenue right before the shooting. They weren't doing the job of patrol and engaging the crowd. The police chief won't release the embarrassing video nor will he address the leadership failure that evening and every weekend before that.

We now hear he is trying to punish the whistleblower who released the video to a select few individuals.

The headlines under Bercaw’s leadership read, “Tampa police officer taunts crowd with profanity laced tirade” , “Tampa cop who threatened to detain tow company workers says he'll fight to get job back” , “Tampa police officer seen driving off from crash” and “Tampa Sergeant suspended for putting hand on suspects neck.”

The other issue with this contract is that we are not sure if it is legal with the State's rules regarding the DROP program or IRS rules regarding 1099 employees.

The most common definition of a contract employee is independent contractor.

Businesses don't deduct taxes from independent contractors and can't treat them like employees. The contract treats Bercaw as an employee, which would mean the City couldn't issue a 1099. Instead, it must deduct taxes. If he continues as an employee with taxes being deducted, we believe it could violate the rules of the DROP program, which does not allow a person to retire and immediately continue as a regular employee.

The City Attorney is telling Council they have done this before. What they are not guaranteeing in writing is if it is copacetic with DROP and the IRS.

Bercaw made a decision to retire early. That was his decision and he should live with it. Tampa taxpayers would be better off.

The agreement was on the consent agenda for last week's City Council meeting but due to the Council's concerns, the item was removed from the agenda.

This column originally appeared at La Gaceta, Tampa's tri-lingual, more than century-old newspaper.

Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.

Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter