“These are not textbook discussions—your decisions impact our lives… you are cutting the salaries of all public service workers by 3%...that’s less money to buy milk, groceries, gas, clothing…the ripple effects of this cut will impact the economic recovery of this state and not in a good way… We don’t make much money while we are working and now you want us to be poor until the day we die.” FEA President Andy Ford’s remarks to the Senate Budget Committee as they embarked on the 2011-12 Budget process.
Senate and House budgets
Yesterday, the Senate Budget Committee passed SB 7084 – the General Appropriations Act for 2011-12. The next stop will be the full Senate – which we believe will be around April 6. We will begin to see amendments filed within the next few days.
Budget conforming bills were heard and passed by the Budget committees this past Thursday and Friday (March 31 and April 1). The conforming bill which contains “reforms” to the Florida Retirement System is SB 7094. Remember: SB 1130 is no longer the bill to track for future changes to the FRS. The conforming bills will be amended once they are placed on the full Senate agenda next week. We’ll be working closely with legislators over the weekend and all next week to improve these bills.
The House retirement bill HB 1405 by Rep. Workman has been placed on the House Special Order calendar for Wednesday, April 6. That means the sponsor will introduce the bill to the full House, explain the bill, and then take questions from other members of the House.
All of these bills will go through significant changes during the next weeks. We’ll call this period the time of budget bill flux – it is too early in the process to predict the outcome. It is NOT too early to contact your legislators about your concerns!
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