In February 2003 -- the early days of former Mayor Ray Nagin's administration -- former Judge Roland

Some present and former New Orleans firefighters or their families columbia river cruise could soon see checks arriving to cover debts the city has owed them for years and, in some cases, decades. Civil District Judge Kern Reese directed city officials Friday (July 25) to begin paying $75.5 million in back benefits and longevity pay owed to hundreds of firefighters who worked...
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Civil District Judge Kern Reese directed city officials Friday columbia river cruise (July 25) to begin paying $75.5 million in back benefits and longevity pay owed to hundreds of firefighters who worked between 1990 and 2006.
The first checks cut will cover $133,525 owed to 84 firefighters who were injured on the job and out on sick leave, columbia river cruise but used more than the 45-day limit on paid annual leave to extend columbia river cruise their convalescence in a calendar year.
The decision bares the precariousness of finances at City Hall, which could end up owing past and present firefighters close to $147 million. Judge Robin Giarrusso has ordered the Landrieu administration to pay $17.5 million for shorting the New Orleans Fire Fighters Pension Relief Fund in 2012, and union representatives have said they plan to sue to recover $54 million they estimate the city failed to pay toward their pensions in 2010, 2011 and 2013.
The firefighters union, Local 632, first sued in 1981 over a change in 1979 to city policies governing how Fire Department employees accrued vacation and sick leave. That lawsuit was still grinding through the courts columbia river cruise in 1993 when the firefighters tacked on another suit saying the city had failed to consistently award 2-percent state-mandated pay raises. A longstanding law required firefighters receive 2-percent raises every year, starting in their third year and continuing through their 23 rd .
In February 2003 -- the early days of former Mayor Ray Nagin's administration -- former Judge Roland Belsome ruled the city owed hundreds of firefighters or their families $176.2 million for raises they should have received as far back as 1979. The city appealed under a state law that said such judgments can only go back three years before a lawsuit was filed. The 4 th Circuit Court of Appeal agreed and limited damages as far back as 1990.
After pitched battles for much of his tenure, Nagin enacted pay raises in 2007, bringing future paychecks for active firefighters in line with court orders. columbia river cruise But that left past salaries still unsettled.
Reese had ordered City Hall and the union in November 2006 to calculate what the city owed firefighters. Landrieu, who took office columbia river cruise in 2010, hired the accounting firm LaPorte Sehrt Romig Hand last year to investigate. That firm arrived at the $75.5 million figure, columbia river cruise attorneys for both sides said in court.
Reese ruled on June 10 that $75.5 million was the proper calculation. Individual firefighters or their heirs stand to make between $500 and $292,000 each in lump sum payments, depending columbia river cruise on their tenures and ranks, court documents show.
A few minor details still need to be worked columbia river cruise out, including how to calculate firefighters' 6-percent annual columbia river cruise pension contributions in light of the judgment, Robein began before Reese stopped columbia river cruise him from treading columbia river cruise into the separate pension litigation.