City to audit two Long Beach police payouts

City officials have asked two recently retired police officers — who are eligible for more than $1 million in total payouts — to take their payments over time, and the cash-strapped city will conduct an audit of the retirement packages.

City Manager Jack Schnirman said that under the city’s contract with the Long Beach Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, Lt. Jim McCormack and Detective Sgt. Howard Domitz are eligible to receive payouts of $575,863 and $521,461, respectively, in accrued unused vacation, compensatory and sick time.

McCormack, who retired on Feb. 29, and Domitz, who retired on April 26, both joined the department in 1978, Schnirman said. The lump-sum retirement payouts are untenable, Schnirman said, because covering them would require the equivalent of a 3.8 percent tax increase as the city grapples with a $10 million deficit.

“We are asking these two retirees, on behalf of the taxpayers, to take their termination payouts over a three-year period,” Schnirman said. “The city is in a time of financial crisis, and a major driver of the city’s staggering deficit are these unbudgeted, tremendous police retirement payouts. As a new administration, we feel that any large payout ought to receive strict scrutiny and be properly audited.”

Schnirman said that the city would conduct the audit internally or with the help of an independent auditor, and that the accrued time needs greater scrutiny. “We have no reason to believe that anyone has done anything wrong — we’re doing the audit in order to do our due diligence and to make sure everything is in line,” he said. “Before you let $575,000 go out the door, you have to take a hard look at the numbers and make sure that they’re accurate.”

Schnirman added that the previous administration did not budget for such retirements, and that the payouts for Domitz and McCormack would bring the city’s total costs for police retirements in fiscal 2011-12 to $3.7 million — nearly 500 percent over budget.