My mother’s story is similar.
She worked for 5 years for a public school in Ohio before she retired and moved to NC around 1950.
For the past several decades (she is currently 88) she has received a monthly retirement check (currently $350 per month) that has been greater than any monthly check she received while she worked as a teacher.
She has also received generous medical coverage (has paid for hundreds of thousands of dollars in operations over the years).
She could never figure out how the State of Ohio could afford this.
Interesting, my mother-in-law worked at a public college in CA for 5 years (to the day). She receives a check for $500 a month, for life (she’s 58, retired for 2 years now). She put in a little over $10K personally, the university (state) matched the $10K with tax dollars, so her all in money was $20K. In 40 months, she’ll be even, maybe 44 if you allow some return on investment from 2004 to now.
Either way, the taxpayer gets hosed, every single time.
This jig needs to be up, for every government worker and have government be reduced 50% minimum.