LEWISTON – Councilors accepted a plan Tuesday retiring three top level managers – the police chief, the fire chief and the human resources director – but keeping them working at their jobs.

Under the plan, the trio would retire as of Feb. 28. They’d begin collecting benefits from the Maine State Employees retirement organization, but would continue to work at their jobs, collecting 85 percent of their salaries. The city would save by not having to pay their full salaries and not having to continue paying into the retirement system.

They’d continue to draw both retirement income and city salary until a fixed date, when they would cease working as contract employees for the city.

Human Resources Director Denis Jean would leave the city as of Dec. 31, 2010. Fire Chief Paul Leclair would leave the city as of Dec. 31, 2012. Police Chief William Welch would leave the city as of Dec. 31, 2013.

“It’s very important to me that this is a short-term arrangement, not longer than five years,” City Administrator Jim Bennett said. “But I think it has the potential to be beneficial for both the city and these employees.”

Bennett said the arrangement would let the city trim $60,000 from its fiscal year 2009-10 budget.

According to Maine State Retirement rules, employees can begin collecting up to 50 percent of their retirement benefits once they reach a certain number of years on the job. For police and fire employees, that’s 22 years. For other employees it’s 25 years, once they’re 50 years old.

The amount of retirement benefits they can eventually receive increases by 2 percent each year they stay beyond that point.

According to proposed budget, Welch makes $95,656 annually, Leclair $88,429 annually and Jean makes $81,181 annually.

Welch said the arrangement means he will see his income increase to 151 percent of what he gets now until 2013. With 32 years on the job, he’ll receive 70 percent of the average of his three highest annual city salaries from the retirement program. He’ll also get 85 percent of his salary from the city.

That ends in 2013, when he begins getting only his retirement income – roughly, 70 percent of his salary.

“So there are benefits and drawbacks for me personally,” Welch said. “I was planning to stay for another five years anyway, so I’d be able to retire with 80 percent of my highest salary. But it’s more income now, so I really struggled with it.”

Welch said that the deal will save money for the city, and that helped persuade him.

“If this is able to save one position from being eliminated, I don’t think it’s that big a sacrifice,” he said.

It’s different from a plan announced earlier this month to buy out some department heads planning to retire later this year.

Under that plan the city would go from 14 departments to seven – police, fire, economic development, public works, planning, finance and community services. Some longtime department heads, considering retirement over the next few years, would plan on taking retirement by summer 2010. The city would pay their salaries from fund balances until they leave. They wouldn’t be replaced. That would save the city another $450,000, about 25 cents on the tax rate.