Florida TaxWatch has formally backed the state effort to require public workers to chip into their taxpayer-supported pension as that case goes before the state Supreme Court.

The Tallahassee-based fiscal watchdog group has filed an amicus brief that joins the effort by Gov. Rick Scott, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater in seeking to overturn a circuit court judge’s ruling that the 2011 requirement was unconstitutional.

“We think the state acted very responsibly, it didn’t abrogate the existing contracts,” said Dominic Calabro, Florida TaxWatch president and CEO. The move to require employees to contribute just 3 percent of their pay toward their pension was a 2011 recommendation of TaxWatch.

“This is a big impact, this is a multibillion-dollar impact over a number of years,” Calabro said.

In March, Leon County Circuit Court Judge Jackie Fulford ruled against the less-than-year-old law to require state employees to contribute 3 percent of their pay toward the pension program.

Fulford, who had previously ruled against the state’s prison privatization plan, sided with public employees who argued the legislative plan to requirie pension contributions violated the right of employees hired before July 1, 2011.

Fulford, noting a 1974 law shift that didn’t require employees to contribute to the pension fund, declared that “to find otherwise would mean that a contract with our state government has no meaning and that the citizens of our state can place no trust in the work of our Legislature.”

The state has argued that nobody lost benefits already earned or the right to collectively bargain when it required the 700,000 state, county and municipal workers to contribute to the $121 billion Florida Retirement System. The change was made as legislators sought to patch a $3.8 billion budget shortfall.

State officials, behind former Supreme Court Justice Raoul Cantero, have argued in their appeal that Fulford’s ruling “would handcuff the Legislature's response to changing financial circumstances."

Calabro noted that prior to 1974, employees had contributed to their retirement accounts.

“We think the state acted responsibly, in a good fiduciary manner,” Calabro said. “It’s looking out for both the employees and their families, but they have to look out for the citizens and taxpayers of Florida.”



Reach Jim Turner at jturner@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 215-9889.