John Meeks, Florida gives and takes away from its teachers

By John Meeks

For a state government that abhors increasing taxes, our leadership in Tallahassee wasted no time in rushing through legislation that effectively placed a three percent tax on its public employees.

While I do not mind shared sacrifice in these hard economic times, I do take issue with the unilateral decision by our state legislature to take three percent of public employees' pay.  I do not question their intentions to shore up our public pension system but I do question their methods.

Now that the state supreme court has upheld this legislation, I respect their decision in spite of what I might rightfully call judicial activism on their part.  In my opinion, they did not take into regard our state constitution, but I accept that the three percent public employee's pay cut is now the law of the land.

Now that this bell has rung, I still believe that public employees who were hired prior to the signing of this legislation should be held harmless as I believe that this was unfairly applied retroactively to public employees who entered into a good faith contract with their respective employers.

I recommend that we contact our state leaders to right this wrong for the sake of maintaining the integrity of our state government and its governing documents.