The Florida Legislature is poised to pass additional reforms to the Florida Retirement System, a public pension plan benefitting more than 40 percent of Baker County’s workforce.

Three week’s into the 2013 session, bills are making their way through both the house and senate to move the Florida Retirement System away from a “defined-benefit” plan to a more risky “defined-contribution” plan for new hires.

The existing defined-benefit system guarantees pension benefits based on a worker’s top annual earnings and years of service. The defined-contribution plan functions as a 401K-style investment plan that’s subject to the ups and downs of market forces.

The house bill (7011) filed in February by Rep. Jason T. Brodeur (R-Sanford) and pushed by House Speaker Rep. Will Weatherford (R-Wesley Chapel, FL), would automatically enroll government employees hired after January 1, 2014 into the investment plan.

The senate bill (1392) filed by Sen. Wilton Simpson (R-New Port Richey) takes a more flexible approach.

It would give new hires the option of enrolling into the investment, or defined-contribution, plan or the traditional plan. If they fail to make a choice, they’ll default into the investment plan, not the defined-benefit plan as they do today.

Sen. Simpson’s proposal would require elected officials and senior management employees to enroll in the investment plan, however.

The senate bill also includes incentives to attract workers to the defined-contribution plan.

Three persons were arrested in the early morning hours of March 17 as county deputies uncovered a drug packaging operation in a Macclenny motel room.

One of the suspects is charged with attempting to run over a county deputy before leading them on a high-speed chase through a nearby residential neighborhood.

Deputy Daryl Mobley responded to a disturbance call at the Econolodge on Woodlawn Rd. shortly after midnight, and about the time he and Deputy Chris Walker reached the area a vehicle left the motel on Woodlawn Rd. at high speed and entered Interstate 10 eastbound.

Deputy Walker and Cpl. Matt Riegel stopped it shortly after and took Shameka Armstrong, 32, of Jacksonville into custody.

She allegedly had kicked out a motel room window, and when officers went to investigate they found the room unoccupied and evidence that it was being used to package marijuana into small baggies for sale.

A 26-year-old Lake City woman died yesterday after the 2005 Kia Optima she was driving crossed into the path of an oncoming logging truck on U.S. 90 about 5 am.

Lindsay Danielle Chace was heading east and the 2001 International semi tractor-trailer driven by Ernest Thomas Williams, 43, of Jacksonville was heading west when the Kia, for a reason still under investigation, crossed the center line and hit the truck head on, according to Trooper K. Hilliard of Florida Highway Patrol (FHP).

As the semi and Kia left the roadway and into the southern tree line, the vehicles struck the front of a 1994 Cadillac that was trailing the Kia.

A recent invitation to county commissioners to offer comments or objections to one of two pending sand mining proposals being considered by state regulatory agencies expired weeks before commissioners even knew about it.

The offer was extended in a memorandum dated January 22 from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which asked for written comments concerning applicant E.R. Jahna Industries Inc. to be returned to DEP headquarters in Tallahassee within 30 days.

“This is your agency’s opportunity to provide comments on and/or to concur with or object to the proposed project,” stated the memo from DEP’s Mining and Mitigation Program office.

During a board meeting on March 5, county commissioners wanted to know why they had not heard about the memo, which listed County Manager C.J. Thompson as one of its intended recipients, until it was too late to respond.

“I got a copy (of the memo) yesterday from somebody in the audience,” Commissioner Adam Giddens said. “I don’t like that. We need to all be on the same page and know what’s going on.”

He said he immediately called the county manager’s office to inquire about the matter.