Recorded before a live audience at the Florida Public Pension Trustees Association conference, this Special Edition of Retirement in America examines Florida’s proposed property-tax changes, known as Amendment 3. Host Dan Doonan brings together perspectives from law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services, and local government to explore the potential benefits, fiscal pressures and long-term tradeoffs.

The conversation looks beyond next year’s tax bill to consider how reduced revenues could affect staffing, emergency response, infrastructure, local control and public pension funding over time. Panelists discuss why the effects could differ across communities, what governments could do to find savings, and who might bear the cost if other taxes or fees replace property-tax revenue.

While focused on Florida, the discussion offers useful questions for communities across the country weighing similar proposals. At its core is one practical question: If we substantially reduce property taxes, what is the long-term plan for the services those taxes support today?

About the Florida Public Pension Trustees Association: The Florida Public Pension Trustees Association provides education and training for public pension trustees. Its programs help trustees understand the legal, actuarial, investment and administrative responsibilities involved in overseeing retirement benefits for public employees. This Special Edition was recorded live at an FPPTA conference.

In This Episode

• Understanding the proposal. The panel reviews Amendment 3’s proposed changes to homestead exemptions, property assessments and the use of local property-tax revenue.
• The case for relief. Why lower property taxes could provide meaningful help for homeowners, particularly retirees and others living on fixed incomes.
• Finding savings before reducing services. How efficiencies, reserves, delayed equipment purchases and hiring freezes could help governments manage revenue losses—and the limits of those approaches.
• What residents could experience. Potential effects on police, fire and EMS response, roads, drainage, parks, maintenance and other everyday services.
• Year one versus year ten. Why the full consequences of vacancies, deferred maintenance and aging equipment may take several budget cycles to emerge.
• Different communities, different challenges. How tax bases, growth, existing staffing and financial reserves could shape the effects on smaller cities and larger jurisdictions.
• Who pays if property taxes fall? The tradeoffs involved in sales taxes, user fees and other revenue sources, including potential effects on lower-income households.
• Local control and state support. Whether replacement funding from the state could help struggling communities—and what conditions might accompany it.
• The connection to retirement security. How pressure on municipal budgets and changes in the public workforce could affect pension contributions, plan administration and long-term funding.
• Questions homeowners should ask. How to weigh immediate tax savings against the cost and value of public services over the years ahead.

Retirement in America is a podcast from the National Institute on Retirement Security examining the economic, workforce and policy trends influencing retirement security. Through expert insight and real-world experience, the podcast helps listeners better understand one of the most important financial issues facing American workers and families.

Their conversation explores the pressure healthcare inflation places on compensation and retirement savings, the enduring value of defined benefit pensions, and the potential for technology and artificial intelligence to improve benefits analysis, communication and decision-making. Blumenstein also discusses why critical thinking, problem solving and human judgment will remain essential as the field evolves.

In this Episode:

• How rising healthcare costs can leave employers with less room for wages and retirement contributions while increasing medical expenses for workers and retirees
• Why new treatments, telehealth and rapidly changing technology are transforming employee benefits
• How workers' expectations for immediate, easy-to-use digital tools are changing benefits communication
• Why many workers cannot simply save more for retirement when basic necessities already consume most of their income
• How defined benefit pensions provide lifetime income and reduce the financial decisions and risks individuals must manage on their own
• Where technology and AI can make benefits modeling and decision-making faster and more responsive
• Why strengthening retirement security requires action from employers, policymakers and other stakeholders - not individuals alone

About Guest David Blumenstein is board chair and immediate past president and CEO of Segal. Drawing on decades of experience working with employers and plan sponsors, he offers a broad view of the forces changing retirement, healthcare and workplace benefits.

Resources Mentioned:

• Retirement Insecurity 2026 - National Institute on Retirement Security
• 2027 Health Plan Cost Trend Survey - Segal
• Segal - Official website

About Retirement in America: Retirement in America is a podcast from the National Institute on Retirement Security examining the economic, workforce and policy trends influencing retirement security. Through expert insight and real-world experience, the podcast helps listeners better understand one of the most important financial issues facing American workers and families.

In Episode 4 of Retirement in America, National Institute on Retirement Security Executive Director Dan Doonan sits down with Dr. Christian Weller, professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston, to examine the economic pressures making it harder for Americans to build financial security for retirement.

Weller explains why traditional measures of economic strength don't always reflect what families are experiencing. Rising housing and healthcare costs, longer periods of unemployment, caregiving responsibilities, and growing financial uncertainty can leave households with less money—and less capacity—to save for the future.

The conversation also explores how today's retirement system places significant responsibility and financial risk on individual workers. Doonan and Weller discuss the role pensions can play in providing greater financial security and peace of mind, as well as the need to expand retirement savings opportunities for workers who lack access to employer-sponsored plans.

Despite the challenges, Weller sees reasons for optimism, including the expansion of automatic retirement savings programs and a growing recognition that individuals shouldn't have to shoulder the burden of preparing for retirement entirely on their own.

Topics covered include:

• How the middle-class affordability squeeze is affecting retirement security
• Why housing and healthcare costs can make it harder for families to save
• What longer periods of unemployment mean for workers, particularly those approaching retirement
• How financial uncertainty and the "mental load" of managing competing expenses can affect long-term financial decisions
• Why pensions can provide workers with greater financial security and peace of mind
• How childcare and eldercare responsibilities can disrupt careers and retirement savings, particularly for women
• Why current retirement tax incentives disproportionately benefit higher-income households
• How state auto-IRA programs can expand retirement savings access for workers without employer-sponsored plans
• Why Weller sees signs of progress toward a retirement system that better shares responsibility and risk

Whether you're interested in retirement policy, affordability, the economy, workforce issues, or the financial pressures facing American families, this conversation offers an important look at how today's middle-class squeeze can shape tomorrow's retirement security.

More information: www.nirsonline.org

In Episode 3 of Retirement in America, National Institute on Retirement Security Executive Director Dan Doonan sits down with Alaska State Representative Chuck Kopp—a former police chief and one of the leading architects of Alaska's effort to reform its public retirement system—to explore how one policy decision transformed the state's workforce.

Nearly two decades after Alaska became the only state in the nation to eliminate traditional pensions for most newly hired public employees, the state now faces severe shortages of teachers, law enforcement officers, firefighters, and other essential workers. Kopp explains how retirement benefits influence recruitment and retention, why experienced employees are leaving for states that still offer pensions, and how high turnover affects taxpayers, public services, and even student outcomes.

The conversation also examines Alaska's bipartisan effort to create a new shared-risk retirement plan—not a return to the state's former pension system, but a modern retirement design that combines elements of traditional pensions and defined contribution plans while sharing risk among employees, employers, and retirees. Although the legislation was ultimately vetoed by the governor, supporters plan to continue pursuing the proposal.

Topics covered include:

• Why Alaska faces some of the nation's most severe public workforce shortages
• How retirement benefits affect the recruitment and retention of teachers, police officers, firefighters, and other public employees
• The hidden costs of employee turnover for taxpayers and government services
• Why teacher turnover affects student learning and community stability
• Alaska's unique retirement challenges as one of the few states where many public employees are not covered by Social Security
• How lawmakers designed a fiscally responsible shared-risk retirement plan instead of simply restoring the old pension system
• Why the proposal attracted bipartisan support—and what comes next

Whether you're interested in retirement policy, workforce challenges, education, public safety, or state government, this conversation offers a compelling look at how retirement policy can shape the strength of communities and the delivery of essential public services.

More information: www.nirsonline.org