WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR

TALLAHASSEE

Heading into a crucial election year, Florida Gov. Rick Scott won’t be pushing any further changes to the state’s massive $100 billion plus pension plan.

Scott is releasing his budget proposal for 2012 later this week and the governor will ask for a small amount of tax cuts, enough money to avoid potential cuts to schools and higher health insurance premiums for state workers. While he has not said much about it so far, Scott has said it will be a “tight budget” given a nearly $2 billion shortfall.

“We should all expect our government to be efficient, so I’ve asked all our agencies to tighten their belts just like all Floridians have,” Scott said on Monday. “We’re going to have make choices.”

But emails obtained by The Associated Press show that while Scott wants more changes to the state pension plan, he and his staff agreed to wait until 2013 before pursuing them.

That’s a remarkable turnaround from earlier this year when Scott pushed for extensive changes to the Florida Retirement System that covers roughly 900,000 current or retired firefighters, teachers and other public employees.

Shortly after he became governor, Scott said both local and state pension plans were a “ticking fiscal time bomb.” Back in February the governor wanted to shut down the main pension plan to new employees and he wanted public employees to contribute five percent of their salary to help cover pension costs.

Legislators instead settled for a 3 percent contribution rate that public employee unions are now challenging in the courts. The lawsuit contends that the changes violated contract and collective bargaining rights guaranteed by the state constitution.

Brian Burgess, a spokesman for Scott, said Monday that governor remains committed to making the pension plan “fiscally sound” and looking for a “path forward on pension reform.”

The main pension plan, worth $114 billion at the end of September, does not right now have enough money to cover all current and future benefits for public employees. It is about 13 percent underfunded though still considered healthy by many financial experts.

Emails show that Scott wanted back in October to send a letter to the state’s 120 legislators about the pension plan. He wanted to point out them there are more than 3,165 retirees receiving more than $75,000 per year in retirement payments and the pension plan has an $18 billion shortfall that would require a 12 percent return over 30 years to become fully funded.

“How does this compare to the returns you are getting on your bank savings?” the draft letter reads. “As you know, I receive $.01 per month in compensation. I am not a participant in the state pension plan. My concern is for the thousands of Floridians who are relying on the state pension plan, which is significantly underfunded.”

Around the same time Scott was drawing up the letter he was making appearances on television and editorial boards where he suggested that schools and local governments should take the money they were now receiving from employees for the pension and use it to cover the shortfall in the pension plan.

But additional emails show that Jon Costello, the governor’s legislative affairs director, asked other top officials in the governor’s office to think twice before sending out the letter to legislators. Costello noted that Scott was “hot about pensions the other day and I am not sure he considered what this may signal when he sends it.”

In another email Costello wrote: “Since we don’t plan on tackling this in 2012 we are telegraphing a fight that we don’t even want to have, furthermore (budget director) Jerry (McDaniel) has indicated that in our budget we likely can fund no more than normal cost, meaning we won’t be showing any leadership in our budget on closing the funding gap. I think this is something we tee up post session and then push for further reforms in 2013.”

Costello on the same day sent another email: “Spoke with gov. He agrees it probably isn’t the right time to send the letter out.”

Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate and one of those deeply involved in last year’s pension reform legislation, said that Scott is making the right move to wait.

Ring said state lawmakers need to see what happens if the courts rule against the Legislature on the changes adopted this past spring.

“We put a lot of effort into it last year, we made same reforms,” Ring said. “We will have to see what happens there.”

Unless you vote in some democrats during the next election into the Florida legislature, these Republicans and going to ramrod a bunch more pension cuts down your throats. This e-mail says they are purposely waiting till 2013 to go after you again. They think you are stupid and will vote them in again because they aren't messing with your pension again "this" year. Vote Republican at your own risk. Every time one party has a super-majority, they go overboard. Checks and balances are healthy.

The Republicans want to cut pay and benefits and jobs. Then they use the money for tax cuts to their billionare cronies and wastefull pet pork projects. This life long Repubican will vote a straight Democrat ticket this year.

The Republicans want to cut pay and benefits and jobs. Then they use the money for tax cuts to their billionare cronies and wastefull pet pork projects. This life long Repubican will vote a straight Democrat ticket this year.

Your president is slated to raise ONE BILLION dollars for reelection. In your warped, pinko world, whom do you think he is getting that money from and why would they give it ???

He is getting it from me. I am sending Obama a hundred dollars to help ensure that the crooked war mongering tea party idiots do not take over our country.

The Republicans wrote off all state workers votes (unless there are some idiots that will vote them in again) when they decided to brand us as the problem for everything indecent that has ever occurred in the history of the world. I will NEVER EVER vote for another Republican on the State level till they regain their sanity and take actions to show that they respect what we do and the sacrifices we and our families have already made. To cut our lowest-in-the-United States paychecks by 3% and taking the 3% and giving it to corporations isn't going to cut it with me. They lie and say our pension plan is in trouble, but they didn't do a thing to fix it. If it was running short of money, then the 3% should have gone into the fund, not given to corporations that do business in other states as well as Florida. Why I have to help line the pocket of some million dollar CEO that lives in New Jersey is beyond my understanding?

The Republicans want to cut pay and benefits and jobs. Then they use the money for tax cuts to their billionare cronies and wastefull pet pork projects. This life long Repubican will vote a straight Democrat ticket this year.

Amen

The Republicans want to cut pay and benefits and jobs. Then they use the money for tax cuts to their billionare cronies and wastefull pet pork projects. This life long Repubican will vote a straight Democrat ticket this year.

Amen

Why don't you just move to New York, Chicago, or some other state income tax through the roof, God forsaken place and leave the rest of us alone???

Why don't you just move to New York, Chicago, or some other state income tax through the roof, God forsaken place and leave the rest of us alone??? //////

Florida does not need a State Income Tax and the Dems have not asked for one. We just don't need to fire Cops, Firefighters and teachers so that tax breaks can be given to Billionair Corporate CEO's by their Republican puppets.

Let me see if I can explain why we need to vote the Dems out in simple terms.

The folks who are GETTING the free stuff don't like the folks who are PAYING for the free stuff, because the folks who are paying for the free stuff can no longer afford to pay for both the free stuff and their own stuff. The folks who are paying for the free stuff want the free stuff to stop.
Whereas, the folks who are getting the free stuff, want even more free stuff on top of the free stuff they are already getting!

Now... The people who are forcing the people who pay for the free stuff, have told the people who are RECEIVING the free stuff, that the people who are PAYING for the free stuff are being mean, prejudiced, and racist. So...
The people who are GETTING the free stuff, have been convinced they need to hate the people who are paying for the free stuff, by the people who are forcing some people to pay for their free stuff, and giving them the free stuff in the first place.

We have let the free stuff giving go on for so long that there are now more people getting the free stuff than are paying for the free stuff!

Now understand this. All great democracies have committed financial suicide somewhere between 200 and 250 years after being founded. The reason? The voters figured out they could vote themselves money from the treasury by electing people who promised to give them money from the treasury in exchange for electing them.

The United States officially became a Republic in 1776, 231 years ago. The number of people now getting free stuff outnumbers the people paying for the free stuff. We have one chance to change that in 2012. Failure to change that spells the end of the United States as we know it.

Get it?