Florida house speaker Will Weatherford is conceding that his fight to move state employees out of a traditional Defined Benefit pension program is in "big trouble," according to reporting from tcpalm.com.
Pension reform has been a cornerstone of the Weatherford's term as House Speaker. Florida's legislative session will end this Friday. On Wednesday, a bill advanced by State Sen. Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, lost a procedural vote by a margin of 21-15 that was necessary to move the bill to a wider up and down vote. The loss has effectively rendered pension reform dead, at least until Florida's next legislative session, which will follow elections in November.
Speaker Weatherford (the youngest officer of any state legislature) and Senator Simpson have led Florida's push for pension reform. Simpson was granted leadership over the issue by Florida's president of the Senate.
Recommended For You
Sen. Simpson's bill would have required all elected officials, except for judges, to move into a defined contribution 401(k) plan after July 1, 2015. The rest of state employees could remain in the traditional defined benefit plan, though the current eight-year vesting period would be extended to ten years. New employees hired after July of 2015 that made no choice over their pension preference would default into the defined contribution plan.
Florida has successfully passed police and firefighter pension reform at the local level. But the effort to affect reform at the state level has now failed two years running.
In Wednesday's procedural debate, Sen. Simpson argued that Florida is headed for the same pension crisis affecting major cities throughout the country, and that tax hikes and rating downgrades are inevitable if the status quo is maintained. Simpson cites the state pension system's unfunded liability at $21 billion.
He claims that moving more employees into defined contribution plans would save up to $29 billion over 30 years. Florida taxpayers will spend $582 million this year to shore up unfunded pension liabilities.
Supporters of pension reform say most state workers (up to 60 percent) don't work long enough to be vested into the defined benefit pension, and that as enrollees in a defined contribution plan, they would be able to roll-over some retirement savings when they leave the state's payroll.
Florida is just the latest state to prove the seemingly intractable political opposition to transitioning from a defined benefit retirement plan to a defined contribution plan. Negotiating solutions to retirement plans may remain unlikely when politicians can't agree as to whether a problem even exists.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Nick Thornton
Nick Thornton is a financial writer covering retirement and health care issues for BenefitsPRO and ALM Media. He greatly enjoys learning from the vast minds in the legal, academic, advisory and money management communities when covering the retirement space. He's also written on international marketing trends, financial institution risk management, defense and energy issues, the restaurant industry in New York City, surfing, cigars, rum, travel, and fishing. When not writing, he's pushing into some land or water.
