January 13, 2011. “Core part” of changes to involve employee contributions

From St. Pete Times  blog “The Buzz”

(JANUARY 12, 2011)

Sen. Jeremy Ring, the Margate Democrat who heads the Senate Governmental Operations Committee, said Senate leadership is ready to end the free retirement now enjoyed by teachers, firefighters, legislators and all other state and local employees in the  Florida Retirement System.

“We’re one of the last states in the country that doesn’t have a contribution and while I think everything’s on the table and I don’t have a number I feel pretty certain that a core part of this discussion is employee contributions,” Ring said after a hearing on pension reform.

Ring said it will be another three weeks before he releases a proposed committee bill as he waits for the actuarial report he has ordered his committee staff to compile. Based on those numbers, Ring said he will decide how much to set the contribution rate for employees.

“I want to be sensitive to a lot of things,” he said.  “If you have a number of 6 percent, which I’m not saying is the number, it’s very different from the $100,000 DMS worker than it is for the $20,000 school bus driver.”