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GWC - Lawmakers nibble at pension problems

Lawmakers nibble at pension problems

Mississippi lawmakers want to cut down on state employees who are double-dipping — drawing a state retirement while continuing to be paid either as contract or part-time workers.

The practice, say advocates of the change, has gotten more prevalent during the budget pinch, as state agencies try to cut their payroll costs by pushing part of them onto the state retirement system.

A bill working its way through the Legislature is intended to discourage the cost-shifting. It would require state agencies to continue to pay into the Public Employees Retirement System for these workers. It also would extend the waiting period before employees could return to work for a state agency beyond the current 45-day wait.

These changes are good ones, but they are only nibbling at the edges of the long-term financial difficulties facing the retirement system that covers some 373,000 state, county and city workers, including 80,000 current retirees.

Greenwood Commonwealth
3/14/10

Posted March 14, 2010 - 10:12 pm

2 Comments:

If government employees want more in their retirement system they need to be funding it. At present taxpayers are paying your taxes, part of retirement, home, food, clothing, and automobiles. Taxpayers get to fund all your needs while he is required to pay into social security which the government has squandered on social programs. It is for your retirement and if you expect one you need to have the responsibility of providing it. Otherwise you are showing what a greedy selfcentered bunch of government employees are in expecting taxpayers to even fund you after retirement.

Posted by windeaces on 03-15-2010 at 11:08 AM [link]

In many cases the state agency or county is getting a part time retired person at half the cost of a new untrained person fresh off the streets with no work experience. So I think they would still get more bank for the buck if they kicked in the employer share of the retired worker’s salary.

Why pay a full time person if you can get the job done better for 1/2 of the salary???

I would like to see state elected officals be able to be retired and serve full time like county officals can now. The state would pay 1/4 of the retirement salary of the retired elected offical and the agency he’s elected to could use the rest of his or her salary paying for other workers and still contribute into the retirement system. We would get an elected offical and still get maybe 2 or 3 young people straight out of college for the same dollar amount of salary.

Posted by Earnest T Bass on 03-15-2010 at 12:39 PM [link]

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