[tabi] Re: What about state of Florida public employees!
- From: "Allison and Chip Orange" <acorange@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <tabi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 7 May 2011 18:17:54 -0400
In addition to all this, there's another hidden surprise:
beginning in the following year's budget (July 2012) our health insurance
cost is calculated quite differently. instead of X$ per month based on
which type of plan you have, it will switch over to a per centage of the
cost that the state pays, so you won't be able to count on it being a
certain price, where the state usually shielded you from the high rate of
inflation in the health-care industry. The state also has created 4 tiers
of health coverage, where you can pay less and get less. I guess sometime
next year we'll have all this explained to us with real dollar amounts
attached, but I don't think the 3% paycut is the only cut we'll end up
taking.
I should point out also, anyone expecting a lawsuit to somehow make it all
right for us, well, no lawsuit can happen without money, which means you'll
need to join the union and pay the dues if you want them to be able to mount
a legal challenge; talking or begging won't make it happen.
Not having a COLA on your retirement payout amount is by far the biggest cut
though. it's because over a 24 year period, the COLA actually doubled your
pension payout amount to allow it to possibly keep pace with inflation. put
another way, can you imagine yourself suddenly having your pension amount
cut in half? that will ultimately be the effect without a COLA, and the 24
year number is based on average inflation over the past 24 years. if it's
much worse in the future, it will be a shorter time.
My understanding for anyone already near retirement though is that such
people will retain most of their COLA. there's a complex formula involving
years served so far before the 2011 cut-off date, and years served after
that date.
No matter how you slice it though, it's probably fairer to say we'll end up
with a 5 to 10 per cent pay cut when all this is taken into consideration
(maybe more for SES and SMS and high risk employees).
I'm not echoing Bubbas complaints, just mentioning all this so everyone can
prepare their own financial situation as best as is possible. It's not
really the point of this list to just allow us to vent, but to try to help
the blind individuals of this area, which help includes information. I'm
sure there must be plenty of local forums and lists for Tallahassee state
employees (actually all this applies to anyone using FRS I believe, so that
would be county employees as well).
Chip
-----Original Message-----
From: tabi-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:tabi-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Bubba
Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2011 5:07 PM
To: tabi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [tabi] What about state of Florida public employees!
Hi, got this from the
Government Operations Appropriations Subcommittee. Here is what I found out.
I work with the legislature myself. Now here it is: All employees will have
to give up 3 percent of their pay, The only exemption is that public workers
of the state of Florida that is retired or in the drop or that retires
before 06/30/2011 and /or go into the drop before 06/30/2011 will not have
to give up 3 percent of their pay. Any one after 06/30/2011 will have to
pay this 3 percent even going into the drop as I under stand it. Now also
all public employees will if not vested before 06/30/2011 will have to have
8 years to be vested in stead of 6 years. Also public workers will going
into the drop will not get the 6.5 percent on their drop money instead after
06/30/2011 they will get only 1.3 percent, Also public workers will not get
in the drop or retired there 3 percent cost of living raise this is to
sunset in 2016, This is for employees that retires or go into the drop after
06/30/2011. In 2016 if the legislature want to they can then restore it to
the 3 percent cost of living raise for drop people and retires if they
choose so and if they choose to give 3 percent it could be anything between
0 and 3 percent. Retirees get to keep their 5 bucks for every year of
service to use to go toward health insurance. Now this being said my opinion
on this it would all be ok if we were benefitting from it. But we are not it
is not going into the retirement fund it is going into the GR ( General
Revenue fund ). So in my opinion this has now become a state of Florida
public employees state income tax. So in my thoughts this is nothing but a
tax on us. This is because we are not getting nothing for our money. It is
not going into the retirement fund to increase or stabilize our retirement.
We are not going to get any interest off of the 3 percent mandatory tax pay
cut. Here again it is consider a tax now. Now this is too me not right at
all and it looks like Discrimination on the public employee. Hope someone
challenges this in court. Now to me it would have hurt but if it was
specifically going to the retirement fund for increasing our retirement or
stabilizing the retirement fund I could swallow it. But it is not it is
going into the GR ( General Revenue fund ) just for balancing the budget. I
really hope we can take this to court on Discrimination on public employees
having to pay a state income tax when no other citizen has a state income
tax in Florida. The old saying is if it walks like a duck, quacks like duck
and looks like duck it must be a duck! This is a public employee state of
Florida income tax because it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and
walks like a duck, so it must be a duck! Quack Quack !
Sign,
Bubba
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