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Read below for updates on higher
education policy proposed in the state legislature.
Remember to use your home
e-mail
accounts to contact your state legislators! Do you need legislator
contact info? Go to MyFloridaHouse.gov, then
click on Find
Your
Representative. Use the Bill Finder to read the content of the
bills.
You can follow the progress of higher
education bills through the state legislature by
signing up on the Legislative
Tracking System at MyFloridaHouse.gov.
Tips on how
to communicate with legislators.
Legislative Update:
There
were many small and large victories in this year's legislative
session.
There were a number of attempts at legislation that would weaken our
K-12
system, our Colleges of Education, and reduce our benefits in
retirement.
Most or all were defeated by citizen action and a strong response from
our UFF
and affiliated organizations (FEA). These came down to the wire
and we
thought they might get through but as you can read below, these
too were
defeated and vetoed.
Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed HB 5607, a proposal to reduce the annual interest rate for those state workers who enter the Deferred Retirement Option Program on or after July 1, 2010. Crist said his decision to veto HB 5607 -- which would have lowered the annual the DROP accrual rate from 6.5 percent to 3.0 percent -- was because it surfaced late in the session and should not have been "rushed through the process." The bill also contained two other provisions:
- revised payroll contribution rates for membership classes of FRS for state fiscal years effective July 1, 2010, and, July 1, 2011;
- required a state actuary to consider additional factors when conducting annual actuarial study of FRS (basically a study of the DROP system).
As you may know, participating employers in the Florida Retirement System must make monthly contributions to fund the FRS based upon rates that are set each year in a bill. That bill will generally have the current rates and a predicted or “pop up rate” for the following year. Since HB 5607 was vetoed and the future rates set in that bill were nullified with that veto, the employer contribution rates will be set to the “pop-up” rates effective in the 2009 (current) rate bill.
Read up on the bills and use the Florida Education Association (public school union) political advocacy web tool.
House
and Senate remain deadlocked on budget.
Legislative updates from
Jennifer: 3/25/10 and 4/8/10