JACKSON, Miss.—Some members of Mississippi’s Public Employees Retirement System say that a recent legislative analysis has not allayed their fears over potential changes to the system’s annual cost-of-living adjustment, also known as public retirees’ “13th check.”
“I’m still worried about what could happen next year because they could change that,” Mary Porter, a retired public school teacher who lives in Terry, Miss., told the Mississippi Free Press on July 23. “Don’t you think? I mean the Legislature can come in and change the law.”
“If it’s protected, though, how can they go in and change it?” her husband, Rick Porter, a retired baseball coach and media center director for Hinds Community College Utica Campus, asked. “If they can go in and change it, then it’s not protected by law.”
“They can change the law,” Mary countered. “That’s what they do.”
The couple, who are both members of Mississippi’s PERS system, argued the point over bacon and spinach omelets at Brent’s Drugs that morning. Their concerns come on the heels of a legislative session that included efforts, some successful, to make significant changes to PERS.
‘The Law Protects the COLA in Mississippi’
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said last month that the Ridgeland-based Jones Walker Law Firm analyzed freezing or adjusting the COLA. Many retirees opt to receive the COLA as a once-yearly payment instead of monthly. The yearly lump-sum check is referred to as the “13th check.”
“Jones Walker Law Firm was hired to provide us with information about how the COLA operates in law when others were discussing freezing it,” Hosemann said in a July 8 statement to the Mississippi Free Press. “What we confirmed is exactly what we believe: the law protects the COLA in Mississippi for employees and retirees.”
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said that an analysis the Ridgeland-based Jones Walker Law Firm conducted found that the law protects the cost-of-living adjustment in Mississippi for employees and retirees. Photo by Nick Judin, file ” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Hosemann-speaking-cred-Nick-Judin.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Hosemann-speaking-cred-Nick-Judin.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button” src=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Hosemann-speaking-cred-Nick-Judin.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1″ alt=”Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, speaking to the press in his office” class=”wp-image-44690″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Hosemann-speaking-cred-Nick-Judin.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1
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