Workers who
qualify for special state pensions
This chart shows which types of state workers can either
retire earlier than other workers or get an enhanced pension that is based on a
higher percentage of their salary. The chart covers only state-run pension
plans and excludes local plans that cover many firefighters. Click to see graph http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-12-08/state-pensions-workers/51750670/1
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States expand lucrative pensions to more jobs
By Thomas Frank, USA
TODAY, Dec 9, 2011
Special retirement benefits once reserved for police,
firefighters and others with dangerous jobs are now being given to tens of
thousands of state workers employed as park rangers, foresters, dispatchers,
coroners, even highway laborers, museum guards and lifeguards.
The trend will add heavily to the $70
billion that state taxpayers owe state retirement funds each year and is
costing states such as Florida and Maryland $15 million to $30 million annually, a USA
TODAY analysis shows.
Thirty-one states have passed laws since
2000 that expand the range of workers who can retire when they turn 50 or 55 or
after working 20 or 25 years, then collect special pensions that will pay some
an extra $1 million or more in retirement. The pensions are enhanced because
they are usually based on a higher percentage of a worker's salary than
pensions for ordinary state workers.
· MORE: States that enacted new pension laws
· INTERACTIVE: How state lawmakers pump up pensions
· STORY: How state lawmakers pump up pensions in ways you
can't
"There's been a massive increase in
the scope of who qualifies for (early) retirement benefits," said William
Eggers, public-sector research director at Deloitte consultants. "They're
supposed to be for people who are getting shot at and running into buildings
that are on fire."
In Illinois, where highway maintenance workers
earn up to $148,000 a year with overtime, early enhanced retirement can pay a
$75,000-a-year pension at age 50 after 25 years on the job. That adds up to
$2.2 million if the retiree lives to age 80 — or $1.2 million more than if the
person had been in the state's regular retirement plan. A 25-year Florida crime lab
analyst can get a $60,000 pension at age 50 and collect $1.8 million by age 80,
compared with $575,000 if the person was not in the state's "special-risk
class."
People in dangerous public safety jobs have
long had enhanced early retirement to encourage them to make way for younger
workers as their physical abilities decline, and to compensate them for lasting
physical and mental damage.
Over the years, other state workers have
lobbied elected officials heavily to be included to those plans, or have won
the benefits via labor negotiations, arguing that they have similar
responsibilities and stress as police. The plans now include livestock
inspectors, lottery agents, electricians, elevator repairmen, coroners, sewer
workers, magistrates, motor-vehicle inspectors, airplane pilots and union
executive directors. Wildlife officers have early retirement in 25 states and
liquor-control agents have it in 15 states.
Continued at ….. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-12-08/state-pensions-workers/51750670/1