Public Employees Are Human Beings and Deserve Treatment As Such

The attacks on Public Employees just keep coming. Here in S. Fl over the past two weeks the City of Hollywood voters were convinced to make changes to the city employees pension, the City of Hialeah City Council has decided to lay off approximately 105 firefighters, 40% of the department with no consideration to the increased property/ homeowners insurance premiums if the fire department doesn’t have the staffing to maintain their current rating. The City of Miami lowered taxes thereby creating a budget “crisis” and went after their employees. Instead of realizing that the public employees ARE NOT the problem, and ARE ready willing and able to help solve problems, politicians and their constituents would rather attack their employees over and over and over!

This week the City of Miami’s Fraternal Order of Police Executive Board is presenting proposed changes to the police contract, the impacted officers will vote on the proposal next week.

As I mentioned, The City of Hollywood voters voted recently to make changes (reductions) to their police, fire, and general employees’ pensions. The voters were told that if the changes were not approved they would face a 23% increase in their property taxes, now that they approved the changes their property taxes will only be increased by 11%.

As I've written before the “in thing” this past year is to bash public employees, attack their pay and benefits highlighting a few abuses painting a picture that this abuse is a common practice by all employees. Those politicians and administrators don't want voters to look at, and question their mismanagement because they might be thrown out of office and lose their benefits (including pension) which seem to be excluded from changes because they have contracts. The administrators want their contract to be enforced and honored, but screw the front line employees.

As I mentioned regarding Hialeah, these reductions in public employees will have an impact on the property and other insurance premiums, or increased costs because of Worker Comp claims or civil litigation judgments. Public employees, especially police and fire, are being required to work way beyond their regular hours in order to maintain minimum coverage and be able to respond to 911 calls. It has become common for officers to be ordered to work additional hours, sometimes a double shift (depending on the length of a shift). In addition to those hours they are still expected to attend court proceedings, this is especially difficult for officers assigned to afternoon and midnight shifts.

These added hours create the situation of officers not being able to get the proper rest between shifts, this increases the possibility of an officer making a mistake or not responding appropriately to an incident. This also increases the possibility of an officer becoming involved in a motor vehicle crash, which can cause injury and property damage to the citizen, officer and agency property.

Another, rarely talked about, issue is the emotional well being of public employees and their families. The added burdens being placed on them create stress, which can cause emotional reactions to incidents, domestic violence situations, and in some cases suicidal thoughts. One police agency in S Florida has seen a 100% percent increase in costs for physiological services provided to employees, hopefully administrators will realize that the current actions are not cost effective when you factor in all the other costs instead of just looking at the immediate impact. Put simply they need to STOP being penny wise and dollar foolish!

Regarding the Hollywood vote, shortly after the vote I spoke with a resident of Hollywood and asked if they would now write their Congress representative and urge them to support H.R. 1332, the Social Security Fairness Act, I got a blank stare in response. I pointed out to this person that as a recipient of a government pension I will not receive my full Social Security benefits despite having all my quarters. Changes to public pensions have been sought by the employees in order to compensate for the loss of Social Security benefits, in many cases public employees have either begun making, or have increased their contributions to their pension. Yes, many public employees contribute to their pensions, pensions they had no choice in joining (during my career my contributions were as high as 10.5% of salary).

People are complaining that Social Security benefits aren’t enough for a person to live on, that beneficiaries qualify for public assistance such as food stamps, etc. If the general public doesn’t want to live/ survive on Social Security at 100%, why are they trying to force public employees to survive with only 40% of that?

It’s about time voters and politicians start seeing public employees as human beings instead of an abstract punching bag!  You think public employees are seen as human beings, I have a test for you.  Take away public employees and replace that with African-American, Female, Hispanic, Oriental, etc.  Now if your politician told you they were going to reduce an African-American, Female, Hispanic, Oriental, Christian, Jew, single parent, homosexual's pay and health insurance benefits what would you do?  Would you say go ahead, they don't deserve what they get as it is?  No you would not!  Well that is exactly what a public employee is!

That’s My Opinion, What’s Yours


The following information comes from the Fraternal Order of Police, Grand Lodge. It is a brief description of a complicated issue.

Social Security Issues

A. Repealing the "Windfall Elimination Provision" and "Government Pension Offset"

The FOP strongly supports the passage of H.R. 1332, the "Social Security Fairness Act," introduced by Representatives Howard L. "Buck" McKeon (R-CA) Howard L. Berman (D-CA) . This legislation would fully repeal both the "Windfall Elimination Provision" (WEP) and the "Government Pension Offset" (GPO) in current Social Security law. The bill has not yet been introduced in the Senate.

The WEP was enacted in 1983 as part of a large reform package designed to shore up the financing of the Social Security system. It went into effect in 1985 and applies a modified formula designed to reduce the amount of the Social Security benefits received by individuals who collect a government pension. The ostensible purpose of the WEP is to remove a "windfall" for persons who spent some time in jobs not covered by Social Security (like public employees) and also worked other jobs where they paid Social Security taxes long enough to qualify for retirement benefits. The practical effect of the provision on low-paid public employees outside the Social Security system is that they lose up to sixty percent (60%) of the Social Security benefits to which they are entitled—a loss, not an adjustment, for a "windfall." This creates a very real inequity for many public employees, particularly police officers, who retire earlier than other government employees to begin second careers which require them to pay into the Social Security system.

We regard this as an issue of fairness, as these public employees are unfairly penalized under current law. The WEP substantially reduces a benefit that workers had included and counted on when planning their retirement. The arbitrary formula, when applied, does not eliminate "windfalls" because of its regressive nature—the reduction is only applied to the first bracket of the benefit formula and causes a relatively larger reduction in benefits to low-paid workers. It also overpenalizes lower paid workers with short careers or, like many retired law enforcement officers, those whose careers are evenly split inside and outside the Social Security system.

Like the WEP, the GPO was adopted in 1983 to shore up the finances of the Social Security trust fund. It offsets the dependent's Social Security benefit to which a spouse or widow(er) is entitled by two-thirds of the monthly amount of any government pension from noncovered employment that the surviving spouse might receive. For example, the wife of a retired law enforcement officer who collects a government pension of $1,200 would be ineligible to collect the surviving spousal benefit of $600 from Social Security upon the death of her spouse. Two-thirds of $1,200 is $800, which is greater than the spousal benefit of $600 and thus, under this law, she would be unable to collect it. If the spouse's benefit were $900, only $100 could be collected, because $800 would be "offset" by her government pension.

Again, the FOP believes this is a matter of fairness and that the offset scheme currently in place penalizes those employees least able to afford it. Law enforcement officers, who often do not participate in the Social Security system, are especially affected.


The Fraternal Order of Police strongly supports the "Social Security Fairness Act."