Florida Gives Public-Sector Workers the Option of Controlling Their Pensions.

Publication: The Miami Herald (Miami, Florida) (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News)

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COPYRIGHT 2001 The Miami Herald

Byline: Harriet Johnson Brackey

Feb. 27--Florida is in the midst of the biggest public pension system overhaul in the nation's history. What the state does will be closely watched in Washington as the debate over privatizing the U.S. Social Security system gains steam.

In all, 650,000 active teachers, bureaucrats, judges and other public sector workers will have the option of controlling their own pension accounts. If the state board that runs the Florida Retirement System is correct, $13 billion in state workers' pensions could be switched to 401(a) accounts -- similar to what many private-sector employees have as 401(k) accounts -- in the first nine months of the new system, which is scheduled to start next year.

The impact of the change could be even more far-reaching, because in a broad sense this transition from government-run pensions to individually managed accounts parallels what President Bush has said he wants to do with part of Social Security.

"It's in concert with the trend of trying to offer more responsibility to people and trying to lessen the liabilities that the government has," said Holland & Knight's Curt Kiser, a longtime state legislator from the Clearwater area who now is working for Valic, an insurance firm that wants to be one...

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