KPD officer sues city over pension

Knoxville police officer Ed Kingsbury says the city pension board is failing to credit him fairly for his U.S. military service.

Since 1984, Knoxville's city charter has allowed veterans employed as police officers to purchase up to four years' worth of military service credit, to apply toward pension eligibility.

Kingsbury, a US Air Force veteran, joined KPD in 1993. Back then, Kingbsury's attorney Don Bosch wrote in an appeal filed Friday, the city didn't actively inform veterans they could purchase that military service credit.

"When Plaintiff Kingsbury joined the Knoxville Police Department in 1993, and through no fault of his own, he was not advised of the opportunity to purchase credit for his military service," Bosch wrote in the appeal.

In 2000, the city amended its charter to limit the time frame in which a veteran can apply for the benefit, (where there previously was no time limit). That amendment, which became effective in 2001, requires a veteran to apply for the benefit "in writing within six months of the employee's first employment anniversary date."

Kingsbury, however, didn't learn about the opportunity until 2014, Bosch said.

The veteran and police officer now wants to buy into the benefit at the price it would have cost him back in 1993: an estimated $18,082, since he would have done so at the time had he been informed of its availability, Bosch wrote.

Kingsbury initially approached the board in May of 2014, asking members to review the charter and his situation.

The city pension board, however, told Kingsbury he must pay, "$74,468, accounting for inflation on the 1993 price and interest the money would have earned," Bosch detailed in the document.

In January of this year, Kingsbury once again approached the board and "objected that he should not be required to pay the entire 2014 actuarial cost," Bosch wrote.

While eventually acknowledging the city's failure to notify Kingsbury of the benefit, the board rejected Kingsbury's request to purchase it at the 1993 price. That was at a hearing in April.

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