http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/01/black.officers.pension.ap/index.htmlGeorgia's first black police officers may take pension battle to courtupdated 4:32 p.m. EST, Sat March 1, 2008
ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- A "whites only" sign was still hanging on the precinct house water fountain in 1964 when James Booker joined the suburban College Park police force.
He soon learned it wasn't the only thing off limits to Georgia's new black recruits.
Until 1976, black officers were blocked from joining a state-supported supplemental police retirement fund.
Today, white officers who entered the fund before that year are taking home hundreds of dollars more every month in retirement benefits than their black counterparts.
The now-retired black officers have been lobbying hard to change that, but eight years after they began an effort to amend the state constitution and give them credit for those lost years is stalled in the Legislature. snip
The Georgia House has twice passed an amendment resolution but it has gone nowhere in the state Senate. An amendment requires a vote of two-thirds of each chamber as well as approval by voters.
"We can't fix everything for everybody," said state Sen. Bill Heath, chairman of the Senate Retirement Committee.
Heath, a Republican, argued that making retroactive changes to retirement benefits "opens up a can of worms and could destroy the pension system." snip
Georgia's first black officers, hired in the late 1940s, entered a segregated system rife with daily humiliations. They couldn't arrest white offenders without a white officer present. They couldn't change into uniforms at the station house -- or wear their uniforms to work -- forcing many to switch clothes in the locker room at the local black YMCA.