Legislators announced on TV pay reductions guaranteed now ?

It was just on TV some legislator acting like it was a foregone conclusion almost all state workers will get some form of pay cut and may have to start paying some of their retirement yearly fund costs sine the state is bankrupt almost and needs 3 billion savings this year and another couple of billion on top of that the next fiscal year after the upcoming one. Sounds like they arent willing to raise any tax this year.

Yes but we are getting a train that no one will ride!

Yes but we are getting a train that no one will ride!

Crazy isnt it.

I have already given the state a pay cut. I only write moving violations when it's absolutely necessary. Otherwise, a warning, card, or non-moving ticket is used. The clowns in Tallahassee need to be taught that if they squeeze us, we'll squeeze them back.

I have already given the state a pay cut. I only write moving violations when it's absolutely necessary. Otherwise, a warning, card, or non-moving ticket is used. The clowns in Tallahassee need to be taught that if they squeeze us, we'll squeeze them back.

All the local clowns need to learn the same message. Tell you local clerks, judges, sheriffs and hospitals. We're not writing crap so your budget is going down the drain.

I have already given the state a pay cut. I only write moving violations when it's absolutely necessary. Otherwise, a warning, card, or non-moving ticket is used. The clowns in Tallahassee need to be taught that if they squeeze us, we'll squeeze them back.

All the local clowns need to learn the same message. Tell you local clerks, judges, sheriffs and hospitals. We're not writing crap so your budget is going down the drain.

Its not fair they arent feeling the same pain is it.

Posted: 7:45 PM Jan 15, 2010

Courtesy of: WCTV Tallahassee

State Worker Layoffs
State workers in Florida could be laid off to help fill an estimated three billion dollar budget gap.
Reporter: Whitney Ray
Email Address: news@wctv.tv

Font Size: Facing a two percent pay cut in last year’s budget, state workers joined forces and convinced Governor Charlie Crist to veto the pay reduction. State workers may have won the battle, but the war rages on.

The state is facing a three billion dollar budget hole and legislative leaders are already discussing laying off state workers to help fill the gap.

Senator Dave Aronberg says layoffs aren’t the answer.

“We’ve had pay freezes for state workers for years. We’ve had furloughs for years, so to keep piling on state workers is not going to balance our budget and really it’s not fair considering they have bore a lot of the brunt from our recent budget cuts,“ said Aronberg.

State employee unions say layoffs would force more people onto the state’s unemployment rolls and cause a slow down in government assistance programs.

give it a rest... if we stopped 1 academy class, we would lose so many troopers, it wouldn't be funny.. so talk about layoffs (highway patrol) is funny... it WON'T HAPPEN). we lose so many a month to other jobs / agency's now, it's a joke and no one cares... There's tons who want your jobs (or so they think).. Ha, ha, ha.....

enough said...

http://www.infowars.com/color-it-red-state-budget-gaps/

give it a rest... if we stopped 1 academy class, we would lose so many troopers, it wouldn't be funny.. so talk about layoffs (highway patrol) is funny... it WON'T HAPPEN). we lose so many a month to other jobs / agency's now, it's a joke and no one cares... There's tons who want your jobs (or so they think).. Ha, ha, ha.....

enough said...

People will care when they snatch 4% of your pay and another $ 1,500 for matching retirement fund yearly fees.

ALL THIS AND THE STATE OF FLORIDA IS TAKING ON 45,000 refugees FROM HAITI.


WHAT A JOKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tallahassee is working on an exercise now eliminating 100 trooper positions. It was only a matter of time before FHP had to cut trooper positions, they have already cut the vacant positions and try to convince everyone we were about 95% staffed.

This one is going to send a bunch of troopers home, I hope they have applications in else where.

Yeah, cut road positions and then move more into specialty! The S.O.'s will slowly take over the road calls and our budget.

ALL THIS AND THE STATE OF FLORIDA IS TAKING ON 45,000 refugees FROM HAITI.


WHAT A JOKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dont forget the State also bought out us sugar. But things will be ok. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Bill Cotterell: Something's got to give in retirement system
Bill Cotterell
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First, they came up with the idea of making all state employees pay for life and health insurance; not exactly fair, but understandable because of today's hideous budget outlook.

Now, there's a proposal — and it's just one alternative, among a few contained in an interim Senate committee project — to make employees contribute to the Florida Retirement System. However unpleasant that might be, it's relatively small change and seems reasonable, given what legislators call a "parade of horribles" confronting them in preparing next year's budget.

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The 2010 legislative session is likely to be miserable for Florida's government work force.

Layoffs? Likely.

Pay raise? No, for the fifth year in a row.

Pay cut? Possibly.

They tried salary reductions last year, but Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed the budget item that would have taken 2 percent from everyone earning more than $45,000. This year, with the state's revenue picture no better and Crist's political fortunes considerably more cloudy, it's unlikely the governor will throw himself in the path of any bureaucracy-busting item in the budget that lawmakers send to him next May.

Salaries, benefits and jobs of government employees are not exactly high priorities among the Republican primary voters whom Crist needs to woo away from U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio. Cutting government costs would be high on a Republican governor's to-do list for the 2010 session anyway, but Crist's slide in the polls makes that even more important.

Late last year, some legislators said it might be time to make all state employees pay for their insurance. Elected officials and members of the Selected Exempt Service and Senior Management Service have long had state-paid coverage, at a cost of some $45 million.

The trouble with that is, about 16,900 Career Service employees were reclassified into SES by ex-Gov. Jeb Bush's "Service First" reorganization of state personnel rules in 2001. They had been paying monthly premiums in Career Service, so giving them state-paid benefits was supposed to offset their loss of Career Service job security — such as it is.

Well, that was then, this is now. Nothing is forever, and legislators have to save all the money they can.

The FRS has been a "noncontributory" pension plan longer than anybody can remember. Whether employees take the regular retirement plan (1.6 percent of average peak earnings, multiplied by years of service) or the Public Employee Optional Retirement Plan (the riskier market-based method), the state puts in all the money.

The Senate Governmental Oversight and Accountability Committee will get a briefing on possible changes this week. The committee staff recently issued a report on employer contribution rates for the FRS, setting forth a few options for dealing with an unfunded liability of about 2 percent.

The Legislature is going to have to raise contribution rates for the state, school boards, city and county governments, colleges and special districts that make up the FRS. The retirement fund is not insolvent, but the committee staff noted "a $23.6 billion swing in asset valuations" of investments made by the State Board of Administration to fund the plan.

The $100 billion-plus pot had been in surplus since 1997 but, coupling past stock market losses with projected increases in payouts, an unfunded liability is now projected. That's not a big cause for alarm. The pension fund is like your home mortgage — you couldn't pay it off right now, but you don't have to; so as long as your income keeps pace with any upward adjustment, it's a treatable condition.

The Senate committee staff didn't recommend changes but tossed out a few gap-closing ideas. Instead of basing contribution rates on the July 1, 2009, value of investments, the state could use the higher Dec. 31 value. Or it could base future projections on a lower rate of salary growth (remember, some day, inevitably, there will be pay raises) and a higher estimate of earnings on investments.

Last, the state could make everybody pay.

"It could return to pre-1975 funding levels in which employees and public officers were required to make a 4-percent and 8-percent pension co-payment, respectively," said the committee staff study. "Among state pension plans, full employer-borne costs are relatively uncommon."

Florida is one of only six or eight states with noncontributory retirement plans. The Senate committee report said that for every 1 percent of the pension payment that is shifted to the employee, governments would save $316 million.

This would mostly benefit hard-pressed counties and school districts, whose employees are nearly three-fourths of the FRS membership. Counties would also net a bigger piece of the savings because so many of their employees are in law enforcement, the special-risk retirement class that requires higher contributions by employers.

State employees are 21 percent of the FRS.

One encouraging trend found by the Senate committee staff is that, despite the roller-coaster investment experience of the market, more cities and counties are joining the system.

"The Division of Retirement has reported a sustained growth in employer membership in the FRS for the past three years," the report said. "Local government employers with their own pension plans are closing them and directing all new hires to the FRS, due to its favorable rate structure."


Contact Senior Political Writer Bill Cotterell at (850) 671-6545

We are screwed the market is tanking again.

But remember, we are appreciated for the job we do. The Colonel tells us this in every email. Now get out there and write some more citations. :roll:

With hundreds of millions in state tax dollars going to welfare programs and illegal immigrant programs you would think that the legislators would be looking to reduce some of those.


But government dependency seems to be the norm more and more every day. :evil: :evil: :evil:

Crap is going to hit the fan if state employees get pay reductions or benefit reductions while plane loads of Haitians were walked into DCF to sign up for Medicaid and food stamps.

Crap is going to hit the fan if state employees get pay reductions or benefit reductions while plane loads of Haitians were walked into DCF to sign up for Medicaid and food stamps.

The problem is most of the state's residents will only be going crazy because of the Haitian situation costing tax money not the state workers situation.

Crap is going to hit the fan if state employees get pay reductions or benefit reductions while plane loads of Haitians were walked into DCF to sign up for Medicaid and food stamps.

Yeah like what? We have so many brainwashed troopers here! We continue to be crapped on year after year and these idiots still act like everything is fine and write 200 tickets a month. They will cut our pay by 10% and what will GHQ say? "At least you have a job".

FHP is in this current situation because we have people in charge that do not fight or force change for us. There is a reason why FHP pays its troopers lower than any other state trooper agency in the country ater 5 years. It is not just by chance.

Crap is going to hit the fan if state employees get pay reductions or benefit reductions while plane loads of Haitians were walked into DCF to sign up for Medicaid and food stamps.

Yeah like what? We have so many brainwashed troopers here! We continue to be crapped on year after year and these idiots still act like everything is fine and write 200 tickets a month. They will cut our pay by 10% and what will GHQ say? "At least you have a job".

FHP is in this current situation because we have people in charge that do not fight or force change for us. There is a reason why FHP pays its troopers lower than any other state trooper agency in the country ater 5 years. It is not just by chance.

I agree. Also our pay sucks because there too many State agencies fighting over the few resources the idiots in tally provide. We would be in better shape if we had the 1,000 different State angcies merged under a public safety department. The SO will never have this though.

It was just on TV some legislator acting like it was a foregone conclusion almost all state workers will get some form of pay cut and may have to start paying some of their retirement yearly fund costs sine the state is bankrupt almost and needs 3 billion savings this year and another couple of billion on top of that the next fiscal year after the upcoming one. Sounds like they arent willing to raise any tax this year.


Florida sends emergency help to Haiti
Posted 1/14/2010 4:20 PM ET E-mail | Save | Print
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida is sending emergency personnel from around the state to help with Haiti's earthquake recovery.

Two 72-member urban search and rescue teams were sent to help look for victims who are trapped, injured or lost.

A Pensacola-based FloridaOne Disaster Medical Assistance Team is also being sent to Haiti. It and others will set up field medical stations.

Gov. Charlie Crist said, "We know from experience that disasters have no borders and our state team is ready, willing and able to answer the call."
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


I THOUGHT THE STATE WAS BANKRUPT!!! IF WE ARE THEN WHY ARE WE SPENDING MONEY ON SENDING HELP TO HAITI? I FEEL FOR THE HAITIANS BUT LET THE FEDS TAKE CARE OF HAITI! SENDING PERSONNEL AND EQUIPMENT COSTS MONEY.
THESE POLITICIANS HAVE IT ALL SCREWED UP!!!

It was just on TV some legislator acting like it was a foregone conclusion almost all state workers will get some form of pay cut and may have to start paying some of their retirement yearly fund costs sine the state is bankrupt almost and needs 3 billion savings this year and another couple of billion on top of that the next fiscal year after the upcoming one. Sounds like they arent willing to raise any tax this year.


Florida sends emergency help to Haiti
Posted 1/14/2010 4:20 PM ET E-mail | Save | Print
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida is sending emergency personnel from around the state to help with Haiti's earthquake recovery.

Two 72-member urban search and rescue teams were sent to help look for victims who are trapped, injured or lost.

A Pensacola-based FloridaOne Disaster Medical Assistance Team is also being sent to Haiti. It and others will set up field medical stations.

Gov. Charlie Crist said, "We know from experience that disasters have no borders and our state team is ready, willing and able to answer the call."
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


I THOUGHT THE STATE WAS BANKRUPT!!! IF WE ARE THEN WHY ARE WE SPENDING MONEY ON SENDING HELP TO HAITI? I FEEL FOR THE HAITIANS BUT LET THE FEDS TAKE CARE OF HAITI! SENDING PERSONNEL AND EQUIPMENT COSTS MONEY.
THESE POLITICIANS HAVE IT ALL SCREWED UP!!!

Haven't you heard? Charlie's running for the US Senate. He'll get some more votes for this.