Unions, State Workers Complain About Pension Reforms in Senate Budget Hearing

Union officials and state workers are pleading with state senators to keep their current pension benefits, or at least reduce the amount of cuts the senators are favoring as they attempt to reform Florida's pension fund and close a $3.8 billion budget deficit.

The Senate's latest budget proposal calls for the 655,000 members of the Florida Retirement System to contribute 3 percent of their salaries to their pensions, phases out cost of living adjustments and closes the Deferred Retirement Option Program to new hires. That proposal is now being mulled by the Senate Budget Committee, but a previous pension reform bill worked out in the Government Oversight Committee included a tiered contribution rate with 2 percent for most workers and a 4 percent contribution rate for higher income workers and elected officials.

State workers and unions were leery of the original proposals, but want to revisit them in the face of deeper cuts.

"All that has kind of been thrown away today. That negates many of the lessons that we all learned about the FRS," said Florida AFL-CIO communications director Rich Templin.

Of course, a familiar refrain has been heard from those opposed to pension reform.

"To balance the budget on the backs of state workers when you have all these other options is unconscionable," Templin said.

"We should not be balancing the state budget on the backs of the public employees," said Andy Ford, who represents the Florida Education Association, the state's largest teachers' union.

The refrain has been echoed by several other public-sector workers.