Posted on 04/20/2012 1:37:49 PM PDT by NoLibZone
The disgraced Secret Service supervisors accused of engaging in a cocaine-fueled hooker party on the taxpayer dime will still cash in on lucrative taxpayer-funded pensions.
Three Secret Service agents tasked with protecting President Barack Obama have been terminated since it was revealed that they reportedly caroused with prostitutes and drugs in Colombia.
The Washington Post Thursday identified the two supervisors who have been forced out of the agency. Supervisor David Randall Chaney, 48, has been allowed to retire, while Greg Stokes, the assistant special agent in charge of the K-9 division, has been fired with cause. A third low-level officer has resigned his post.
Chaney will soon be cashing in on a pension worth between $47,000 and $61,000 per year, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.
Despite the scandal, it will be nearly impossible to prevent him from collecting on the lucrative sum, according to Michael Spekter, an attorney specializing in defending federal benefit packages.
Even if youre fired for misconduct, unless you are found guilty of treason, you can get your retirement benefits that youve earned through your years of public service, he said. They dont dock your pensions.
Spekter has represented hundreds of federal employees during his 30-year career and has never seen a worker lose his pension.
Lawyers for the two agents told the Washington Post each man has between 17 and 18 years of service with the agency.
The Secret Service refused to comment on additional personnel matters. However, several federal law enforcement sources say that agents must have at least GS-14 seniority to qualify as supervisorsstandards that also apply to the Secret Service.
Federal law enforcement supervisors working out of the D.C. metro area earn between $105,211 and $136,771. The positions qualify for pensions worth 2.5 percent of average highest salary over a period of three consecutive years, multiplied by years of service.
GS-14 supervisors receive pensions worth between $47,000 and $61,000 annually.
Since Chaney is retiring, he can collect on his pension almost immediately and could collect until age 83the most recent average lifespan estimates for federal law enforcement officers, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
Over his lifetime, he could receive between $1.65 and $2.15 million in retirement.
Stokes, the fired agent, also qualifies for his pension and will begin collecting at age 62, which would earn him up to $1.3 million over his expected lifetime.
The Washington Free Beacon estimate could be on the low end of the spectrum.
Once in retirement, the agents will continue to enjoy a Cadillac health insurance plan while paying minimal premiums. They will also enjoy annual cost of living adjustments, which increase pensions based upon the consumer price index. Retirees enjoyed a 3.6 percent pay bump in 2012.
Scandals involving government or political employees often raise questions about whether they are entitled to such generous taxpayer-funded benefits.
The debate last surfaced when former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was charged with more than 50 criminal counts of sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years. Public outcry led the state pension board to review his benefits, though Sandusky will continue to collect state checks until his trial is complete.
Andrew G. Biggs, a former principal deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration, said pension benefits are viewed as money in the bank, regardless of who is holding the money.
At some point you have to consider whether the employee earns this money or the employer does, said Biggs, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. If you get fired in the private sector, you get to keep the money thats in your 401(k).
Frank Keegan, a pension expert at State Budget Solutions, said the employer-employee debate is complicated in the public sector.
Its the taxpayers money, not the governments, he said. If people violate the public trust, taxpayers shouldnt have to pay the pension costs for the rest of [the employees] life.
Some state and local governments have passed laws that strip public officials and employees of their pensions if they are convicted of felonies or otherwise violate the public trust.
The most notable case to date has been that of the imprisoned former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. State Attorney General Lisa Madigan, whom the Democratic governor considered appointing to Barack Obamas Senate seat, stripped Blagojevich of his $65,000 pension following his corruption conviction in 2011.
Beginning in 2019, however, Blagojevich will begin cashing $13,000 checks from the federal government for his congressional pension. He will also be halfway through his 14-year prison term.
The Secret Service is reviewing the conduct of nearly a dozen agents, as well as forcing those allegedly involved to undergo polygraph tests.
Biggs said the governments exhaustive investigation digs at the root of the problem: office culture. He said the extensive guest list at the wild partyup to 20 military and Secret Service personnel and an equal number of prostitutesdemonstrates an agency culture akin to the General Service Administrations lavish Las Vegas trip.
If you want recourse, you dont go after their pensions; you make it easier to fire federal employees, he said. I dont know what happened over there, but if we give everybody their due process, we are going to get people paying attention.
Agency officials have told congressional committees in the House and Senate that more heads are likely to rolland take their lucrative pensions with them. This entry was posted in Federal Bureaucracy and tagged Secret Service. Bookmark the permalink.
So your a big gov supporter who defends drunken Secret Service agents while their banging foreign prostitutes, all while defending their bloated, tax paid lottery style retirement pensions?
Ooook.
Private sector pensions are NOT taxpayer funded and are becoming very rare.
Pension may have been the wrong word to use. What I meant is most employers of any size contribute more than just social security to your retirement. If SS is all you have you’re looking at a pretty meager retirement.
I work for a firm of 45. My employer contributes nothing beyond SS. No pension, no 401k match, nothing. Only one person I know of does and that person is my wife who happens to work for a 3 billion dollar non-profit entity and they have a 503 pension.
Some of my friends employers do have a 401k plan with a match to 3 or 4%. That’s it. Most of them have access to a 401k, but their employer doesn’t match at all.
We are very fortunate. Her employer matches to 8% on the 403b plan and contributes an additional 8% on the 503. But we are unique among all of our friends. No one else we know has anything that even comes close.
So we’ve basically been socking away 24% or so of her annual salary for the last 15 years. Now all we have to worry about is the Government deciding to “protect” us by confiscating it.
The only problem is, apparently, those "bennies" aren't threatened by prostitutes or other misconduct. If these people were terminated and allowed to keep their pensions, then they weren't really terminated, they were retired. For many years, the American public has been told and sold that salaries and benefits for certain public servants needed to be more generous to attract better people to those positions...I don't see a lot of "better" people involved here. This is the presidential detail. They are supposed to be that cream of the crop, the best of the best, the most intensively screened and thoroughly vetted. If that's the case, it does not speak well for the rest of the SS or FedGov in general.
This move, IMHO, adds fuel to the conspiracy fire. If this was just about being held truly accountable for gross indiscretions, there would be no pension. As such, this pension can be looked at as “hush money”.
I always felt bills problems with Monica were more about spies blackmailing the highest office in the land but the media dismissed that and claimed it is all about sex.
Yes sir, they were allowed to get their pensions but the point I should have made was that by “retiring” early they were not able to build up the averages of higher pay that they would have accrued had they stayed on the job longer. So, indeed they paid some price by being terminated. The higher pay averages would have increased their retirement pay, maybe considerably.
I do stand by my position that no woman is worth losing one’s old-age pay, even increments of it. But then again, maybe I’m showing my age.
So you have no respect for a person who would take a bullet for the President of the United States of America?
YOU SCUMBAG! What have YOU done for our country?
And then they get lottery style government retirement pensions?
Spit*
So you have no respect for a person who would take a bullet for the President of the United States of America?
YOU SCUMBAG!
LOL!
You really are a moron.
yes, you are a scumbag and a moron, you ignorant POS loser!
So now we have cocaine thrown into the alleged scandal.......
I'm getting the impression that this incident is getting thrown way out of proportion......
That's not quite accurate. Anyone with 5 years of service or more in a Defined Benefit Plan is VESTED in that plan regardles of when or why they were terminated.
Depending on the plan requirements, they usually can't commence receiving payments from that Plan until at least age 60..........
And then they get lottery style government retirement pensions?
you are a scumbag and a moron, you ignorant POS loser!
And you're a big government butt nugget.
And then they get lottery style government retirement pensions?
So you have no respect for a person who would take a bullet for the President of the United States of America?
You don't know much about me, do you
You've ID'd yourself quite well.
You're one of those who involuntarily burp out comments with little or no thought.
And then they get lottery style government retirement pensions?
So you have no respect for a person who would take a bullet for the President of the United States of America?
The comment you made above, regarding respecting married, drunken Secret Service agents, banging foreign prostitutes, makes you a complete idiot.
Nothing personal though.
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