{"id":6053,"date":"2012-04-05T09:00:36","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T13:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=6053"},"modified":"2012-07-18T12:30:01","modified_gmt":"2012-07-18T16:30:01","slug":"pension-case-moves-directly-to-florida-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/04\/05\/pension-case-moves-directly-to-florida-supreme-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Pension Case Moves Directly To Florida Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"
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iStockPhoto.com<\/p>

Teachers have been taking a 3 percent cut to their paychecks since July 2011.<\/p><\/div>\n

Editor’s note: This post was written by WLRN reporter Tasnim Shamma.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Florida Supreme Court accepted a public pension case last week that challenges a law passed in July that requires public employees to contribute 3 percent of their paychecks toward their retirement.<\/p>\n

The Florida Education Association<\/a> says this is unconstitutional and has been fighting this law since last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since 1974, the state’s retirement system has been\u00a0noncontributory,\u00a0so employees were never expected to pay into the system<\/a>. Though it seems logical for teachers to pitch in to pay for their own retirement,\u00a0Mark Pudlow, a spokesman for the FEA,\u00a0says you need to look at the whole picture.\u00a0Cutting 3 percent<\/a> from a teacher’s salary is a big hit. In Florida, a teacher earns $10,000 less than the national average and retirement benefits are also lower.<\/p>\n

“The salaries for every classification of public service workers are lower than the national average,” Pudlow said. “Anyone who’s employed as a teacher is affected – everyone – from the principal to the custodian.\u00a0We believe that the lawmakers broke a contract.”<\/p>\n

Pudlow said the Supreme Court’s decision to take up the case was good news for public employees who are looking to get their money back — from teachers to firefighters — because it would be skipping the appellate route and would allow for a faster decision. The first oral argument is scheduled for 9 a.m. on September 5 and a decision is expected in the weeks or months after the court session begins.<\/p>\n

Are you a teacher who has three percent of your wages deducted from each paycheck? Tell us in the comments about how this state pension tax has been affecting you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: This post was written by WLRN reporter Tasnim Shamma. The Florida Supreme Court accepted a public pension case last week that challenges a law passed in July that requires public employees to contribute 3 percent of their paychecks toward their retirement. The Florida Education Association says this is unconstitutional and has been fighting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[1059,1058],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6053"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/108"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}