How state lawmakers pump up their pensions

[RamboLiberal]

More than 4,100 legislators in 33 states are positioned to benefit from special retirement laws that they and their predecessors have enacted to boost their pensions by up to $100,000 a year, a USA TODAY investigation found. Even as legislators cut basic state services and slash benefits for police, teachers and other workers, they have preserved pension laws that grant themselves perks unavailable to voters they serve or workers they direct.

In some states, lawmakers add expenses, per diem allowances and stipends to their base salaries. That inflates the compensation that's used to calculate retirement benefits, which are typically a percentage of final pay. In other states, legislators have written a special definition of salary that applies only to their pensions. Additional tactics include:

•Basing pensions on salaries legislators are not paid or were paid in non-legislative jobs.

•Collecting state pensions while also collecting legislative paychecks.

•Retiring earlier — at a younger age or after fewer years — than other state workers, or with richer benefits.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-10-11/1A-state-lawmakers-pump-pensions/50522036/1

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/state-legislators-pensions/index.html?loc=interstitialskip

S.C. Sen. David Thomas (RINO-Greenville) has become the national poster boy for elected officials gaming state pension systems in order to give themselves exorbitant pension benefits not available to other government workers.

Thomas was featured prominently Friday in a USA Today special report on the subject. That report found that 4,100 lawmakers in 33 states are benefiting from “special retirement laws that they and their predecessors have enacted to boost their pensions by up to $100,000 a year.”

Thomas, specifically, has been receiving a $32,390 annual retirement benefit for the past six years in lieu of his $10,400 part-time legislative salary – even though he hasn’t retired. Thomas will continue to receive the benefit for the rest of his life.

How’s he swinging that? And why is his benefit more than three times his legislative salary? Well, in 2002 Thomas and his colleagues passed a law that permitted them to take a benefit in lieu of salary once they reached retirement age. As for the inflated payout, lawmakers passed language that permits them to count their taxpayer-funded lodging, food and travel expenses toward their pension.

http://www.fitsnews.com/2011/09/23/sc-lawmakers-get-pension-perks/

[WCGreen]

1. Mayors and other public officials will "retire" when they qualify

for the highest pension they can get and then come back on the job the next day.

Here in Ohio, they run for reelection, get reelected and then "retire" the day before they are sworn in so that they are eligible for the pension while getting sworn in the next day...

It's pure and utter bullshit.

I was around a whole lot of these guys and this is one of the most hot topics among "elected" officials is how to squeeze as much as they an from the system.

And all of them were democrats here in Cuyahoga County.

It was one of the reasons I couldn't deal with ans left the political world behind.

Far too many of these "elected" officials are more concerned about what's in it for them instead of how can I serve.

[MichiganVote]

2. K&R