Our Florida Retirement System contribution is already taken out of our salary. Look at your pay stub and your will see it listed on the bottom. It was explained to me that the FRS contribution is included in the state's salary cost and therefore included the money package that Florida feeds the district. The district then sends the state the FRS contribution in our name.
If we are required to pay the 5% from our gross pay WITHOUT being given the 5% upfront that is included in the salary calculation - then we are really losing 10%!!! Plus are we taxed on the money? If so then how can we be taxed when we "redeem" it?
If they slide the money from the state to us ( as a raise?) and we are forced to give it back to the state then all that has happened is a slick-rick shell game!
Since we are then sending money in our name, don't we have the expectation that all money contributed by us will revert to our heirs if we die before collecting? Now the state just keeps it! Which perversly make some sense.
This is nuts!
Time to make ourselves REALLY HEARD.
We must join the cops and firefighters in this and be ready to take a stand.
We must remember that gambling proceeds will never find their way to their target. Need I remind you of the lottery-education connection? Some promise, huh?
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Part of a Letter to the editor (Trib) from Jill Kinney
First, as a retired teacher of 40 years' experience, I can tell you that the Classroom Teachers Association negotiated the benefits for us, with the trade-off of no pension deductions in lieu of higher salaries.
The state retirement system benefited from this greatly, because it was able to invest the employer's contribution and receive much greater interest rates than individual employees could have received on their own.
We sacrificed with a lower salary, confident that the state would honor its commitment to the pension fund. I think the state should be subject to a lawsuit from the teachers' unions if it is taken away without a corresponding salary increase.
Second, the health subsidy was likewise negotiated as a benefit for future retirement in lieu of salary increases.
Teachers have long "paid" into this funding by relinquishing much deserved raises, knowing it would be there when they retired. I have depended on this so-called subsidy for my prescription drug expenses, and now they want to take it away, meaning Medicare can charge me a penalty for late enrollment in their Part D coverage.
Scott could not care less about us. He is accustomed to milking the system for his own business advantage and wants to treat state employees as second-class citizens.
The truth is that we work — or worked — for lower salaries for years, trusting that the money was being invested for us.
Sounds like Social Security doesn't it? (Except that Social Security didn't invest it for us like the Florida Pension Fund did.)
It's our money. We earned it. It isn't a gift.
The state takes a portion of state employees pay and invests it into the FRS.
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