How state lawmakers pump up pensions in ways you can't

[EV_Ares]

At age 55, South Carolina state Sen. David Thomas began collecting a pension for his legislative service without leaving office.

Most workers must retire from their jobs before getting retirement benefits. But Thomas used a one-sentence law that he and his colleagues passed in 2002 to let legislators receive a
taxpayer-funded pension instead of a salary after serving for 30 years.

Thomas' $32,390 annual retirement benefit — paid for the rest of his life — is more than triple the $10,400 salary he gave up. His pension exceeds the salary because of another perk: Lawmakers voted to count their expenses in the salary used to calculate their pensions.

No other South Carolina state workers get those perks.
Since January 2005, Thomas, a Republican, has made $148,435 more than a legislative salary would have paid, his financial-disclosure records show. At least four other South Carolina lawmakers are getting pensions instead of salaries, netting an extra $292,000 since 2005, records show.
Pension perks aren't unique to legislators in South Carolina.
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.
Oregon: Double dipping


This year, the state of Oregon will pay state Rep. Andy Olson $108,701. That's $15,100 more than the governor's salary.

Olson gets so much because Oregon legislators allow themselves to collect a public pension while in office. The perk has let Olson, a retired state trooper who is 58, collect $705,000 from the state since he took office in January 2005. That includes $560,000 in pension payments.

Most of the 180,000 retirees getting a pension from the Oregon state retirement system are not as fortunate. A retiree who starts working for a local or state agency or for a school district usually is restricted to getting paid for 10 or 20 hours a week.

Olson, a Republican, supports allowing legislators to collect state pensions while in office, saying the policy encourages retirees such as himself with extensive public-sector experience to hold office by not penalizing them financially. Olson is among 10 of Oregon's 90 legislators who have collected $3.1 million in state pensions while in office.

Photo by David Patton, Albany Democrat-Herald
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.



Entire article @ http://usat.ly/oBcqDo