A.G. Gancarski
With the MLK Birthday Breakfast Friday calling him back to Jacksonville, Mayor Lenny Curry will wrap up his Tallahassee trip Thursday after meetings galore.
One would surmise that those meetings are intended to create buy-in for his pension sales tax proposal, which some worry was advanced a bit late for this Legislative Session.
Curry’s meeting schedule included meetings with senators such as Reapportionment Chairman Bill Galvano, Aaron Bean, and Rob Bradley, who introduced Curry’s bill to the Senate.
On the House side, Curry had scheduled meetings with Janet Adkins, Jay Fant, and Cyndi Stevenson, along with a lunch with Travis Cummings (the House sponsor of the pension tax bill), which directly followed a meeting with Matt Gaetz, chair of the Finance and Tax Committee.
Somewhere in the afternoon, Curry also has a call scheduled with Florida Times-Union State House reporter Tia Mitchell.
The big push, however, may be at Friday morning’s Police and Fire Pension Fund meeting, where Chief of Staff Kerri Stewart and Chief Administrative Officer Sam Mousa are expected to make a presentation to the PFPF Board.
They may encounter pushback. A four-page letter from former Fraternal Order of Police counsel Tad Delegal, who was on the Pension Task Force of the previous administration, contends that a move to a defined contribution plan for new hires and “abandoning the defined benefit plan will create higher compensation costs. A 401(k) plan will not keep officers on the job for long, and eventually, the City will be forced to increase pay to stem the turnover.”
The police and fire unions have been mum thus far. Will the PFPF Board? FloridaPolitics.com will have coverage.
