Borough settles PERS lawsuit

WASILLA — The Mat-Su Borough has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by nine of its emergency responders in a dispute about the definition of what constitutes an employee.

The borough will pay the nine plaintiffs $160,311 plus attorney fees, according to a press release issued last week.

The responders had argued they had been failed to receive retirement benefits from the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS). The borough argued that the employees were on-call employees rather than permanent employees. But the state in 2013 ordered the borough to either allow the employees to buy into the state retirement system or not let them work 30 hours per week. The state decision forced the borough to hire more full-time medics and firefighters to make up the difference.

In exchange for settling the case, the nine responders agreed to drop all PERS challenges, according to borough attorney Nicholas Spiropoulos.

The lawsuit was filed in September 2014 on behalf of employees, some who had as much as 20 years of experience working for the borough.

The settlement does not affect claims made by other responders who did not join the lawsuit and chose to fight their cases separately. The suit alleged the borough was negligent by its intentional failure to include them in the PERS system.

Borough manager John Moosey said he was pleased with the settlement.

“We value the service of these responders. We don’t believe the Borough was in the wrong, but the settlement avoids the uncertainty of a trial and avoids the negative impacts to Borough operations,” Moosey said in a statement.

Contact the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman newsroom at news@frontiersman.com or (907) 352-2250.