Jacksonville will follow its own charter, brings city workers into pension plan

Beginning this pay cycle, the city will put all civil service employees in the pension plan, rather than filtering some into the less lucrative Social Security system.

The moves comes a month after a group of employees – now close to 100 – filed a lawsuit seeking rights to the pension after the city said they weren’t eligible because they didn’t pass a physical examination.

Exact costs were not available because some calculations include overtime pay and others don’t, but the change is expected to cost the city more than $1.6 million for the rest of this budget year and $2.9 million annually going forward, city spokeswoman Misty Skipper said.

On top of salary, the city pays 13.5 percent of each employee’s pay into the pension fund — more than double the 6.2 percent it pays in Social Security.