Response to the FOP President James Preston letter regarding PBA's support for SB 1392


If you have read or heard about yesterday's letter from FOP President James Preston then you will completely understand this reply. I will not re-post the letter here because it is so full false information.

What the FOP is alleging about the PBA's support for SB 1392 is simply not true. For starter's SB 1392 does not change one thing about the special risk pension plan that most of you are currently enrolled in. It also doesn't prevent future special risk employees from joining the pension plan.

Here are the undisputed facts about SB 1392:

- Legislation only applies to officers enrolled in the FRS on or after July 1, 2014;

- Changes the vesting period in the Pension Plan from 8 to 10 years for the new hires;

- Mandates that new hires in the Elected Officers' Class and Senior Management Service Class members may only join the Investment Plan;

- Allows new officers in the special risk membership class to elect the pension plan, but if no choice is made these officers will be placed into the Investment Plan;

- Closes the Senior Management Service Optional Annuity Program to new members;

- Changes the out of service disability retirement vesting period from 8 to 10 years for new officers only, but does not change the in the line of duty disability benefit for anyone; and

- Lowers the employee's contribution rate from 3 percent to 2 percent for all members of the Investment Plan to entice people to join the investment plan.


Here are the FOP President's comments about SB 1392:

- It will lead to the eventual closing of the defined benefit plan. FOP provides no evidence to support this claim. None.

- It will increase the vesting period from 8 years to 10 years. FOP is confused here. It does increase the vesting for all new pension plan employees hired on or after July 1, 2014.

- It will eliminate death benefits for survivors of officers killed in the line of duty. This one is a whopper. The bill does not even address the section of law which provides those benefits (Chapter 112.19 Florida Statutes). PBA has lobbied the Legislature for years to provide benefits for the survivors.

- It will drastically reduce disability benefits for disabled officers. Not true, FOP gets it wrong again. The Legislation increases the vesting for non-in line of duty disability to 10 years for all new hires after July 1, 2014. However, the line of duty disability benefit is unchanged.

Why is the FOP President writing all of this about the PBA? His stated reason is because the PBA has secured long overdue budget language in both the House and Senate Appropriations bills that provide a much needed pay increase for all of the PBA state bargaining units. He wants everyone to believe that these raises are in exchange for our support of SB 1392. This allegation is not true.

We have been working very hard to earn legislative support for the above mentioned pay raises and our discussions began long before SB 1392 was even filed. The two issues are not linked in any way and to suggest some type of quid pro quo is a very serious false allegation.

Here are my thoughts on why he wrote the letter. These words from the FOP President seem to be nothing more than a festering jealousy that has perhaps always consumed him because of what the PBA has been able to successfully lobby for in the Legislature. He's done this sort of stuff before. However with this attempt to slander the PBA, he is also putting these much deserved raises in jeopardy by trying to divide our membership.

Furthermore (and this is a very important point), if the FOP is so firmly against SB 1392, perhaps someone from his organization should have gone on the record last week when it was heard during its last committee stop. This meeting was the last opportunity for the FOP to officially oppose the legislation and NO ONE from the FOP publicly opposed it.

So when it mattered most, the FOP was nowhere to be found.

All we ask of you is to know the facts about the bill and to understand the FOP's motives for publicly slandering the PBA.

Until next time stay safe out there.


Matt Puckett
Executive Director
Florida Police Benevolent Association