New data suggests that Florida could have another crisis for retirees on its hands. As Matt Galka tells us, it goes beyond local pensions and into the world of healthcare.<\/p>\n\n

Pension problems have been ongoing in the state. Unfunded liability for local governments have put future benefit burdens on taxpayers.\u00a0 The problem is so bad in Jacksonville that Representative Janet Adkins called for an investigation earlier this month.<\/p>\n

“Florida, as many of you know, is faced with approximately $11 billion dollars in unfunded liability for pensions. Over $1.6 billion of that unfunded liability is associated with the Jacksonville police and fire pension fund,” she said last week while addressing a legislative auditing committee.<\/p>\n

But a new report suggests there could be another problem on the way.\u00a0 Policy thinktank the Leroy Collins institute released data about another unfunded liability for local governments: healthcare benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a problem because it\u2019s a pay as you go system, so a lot of the local governments are not really paying for those benefits of the future. So they\u2019re paying today, but they\u2019re not paying for what they\u2019re going to have to pay for when these people retire,” said Collins Institute Director Carol Weissert.<\/p>\n

The report says that cities and counties are facing an $8 billion dollar shortfall in healthcare benefit liability for retirees. A majority of Florida governments aren\u2019t setting aside future money for their retiree benefits.\u00a0 It could especially hurt as more baby boomers start leaving the workforce Florida TaxWatch says both the pension problems and the healthcare problems have to be dealt with now.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really is a double whammy.\u00a0 These work together to be obligations that add up to nearly 20 billion dollars that Florida taxpayers will owe,” said Robert Weissert with Florida TaxWatch.<\/p>\n

If the local governments aren\u2019t able to shore up their healthcare promises, it could mean that employees are out of luck or taxpayers are on the hook. Experts say the solution starts at the local level and budgeting yearly for future payments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New data suggests that Florida could have another crisis for retirees on its hands. As Matt Galka tells us, it goes beyond local pensions and into the world of healthcare. Pension problems have been ongoing in the state. Unfunded liability for local governments have put future benefit burdens on taxpayers.\u00a0 The problem is so bad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24943"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24943"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24963,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24943\/revisions\/24963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}