Posted on 01/23/2015 7:27:54 AM PST by redreno
CARSON CITY — A retirement system official said Thursday a report showing that some public employees who retire collect more in pension benefits than they did while working was based on less than 2 percent of beneficiaries.
The analysis also does not reflect changes to the retirement plan made in 1985 that reduced pension payouts, said Tina Leiss, executive officer of the system.
The conclusions in the report issued by the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank based in Las Vegas, do not account for the vast majority of the members and retirees of the Public Employees’ Retirement System, she said.
“It appears that the analysis was based on a review of 790 retirees whereas there are currently 49,179 retirees (not including survivors and beneficiaries) receiving benefits from the system,” Leiss said. “Over the last 3 fiscal years, approximately 12 percent of those retiring in those years did so with 30 or more years of service while approximately 88 percent did so with less than 30 years of service.”
NPRI officials have used the analysis as evidence of the need for reforms to the public employee retirement system, but Leiss said the analysis is not representative of the benefit structure in place for almost ail current members of the system. Benefits were reduced in 1985 from 90 percent to 75 percent of average compensation for newly hired public employees, she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at reviewjournal.com ...
And I say that as a public school worker. I know folks who are collecting more in retirement per year than they made in salary per year. Their retirement is more than 100% of their job pay! Crazy.
sweet deal.
collect more in retirement than while working and be exempt from the SS scheme to boot. I sure hope they can also go back to work as a public employee the day after they retire and collect a salary at the same time.
Did they contribute to their retirement plan?
If someone spends a lifetime putting into a retirement fund and the $$ grow with interest, it is entirely possible that
they could collect more than their salary.
And if that’s the case, it’s none of your business.
You are talking about withdrawals from a retirement plan (individually-funded 401k's, etc). I'm talking about pension plans, funded by the taxpayer.
I though my "half-pay" comment implied a pension. Perhaps I should have been clearer.
At any rate, you are correct about individual retirement plan pay-outs. If a person has saved all his life, he obviously deserves to reap the benefits.
But too many public pensions are based on unrealistic, slanted formulas. That's taxpayer money slipping away, my FRiend.
My contribution to my “public” pension (superannuation fund) is over $100/week direct cheque-off. Every week, even out of my vacation pay.
Should my benefits be reduced even if the superann fund owes me the money?
Roughly the same for me (as I noted before, I am a public worker also).
My beef is not as a public worker. I'm looking at the bigger picture. Perhaps your state is more reasonable, but many folks in my state get back far more in retirement than their mandatory contributions (including interest) would warrant.
The difference is made up by the city, the school district, etc. Those entities are required to throw in more when the funds need more money. It is simply not sustainable.
By the way, I'm not criticizing any workers here. If an employer offers you the sky, you'd be crazy to decline it. What I'm saying is that the pension calculation process is faulty.
No personal income tax in the state of Nevada, the PERS gets funded mainly by the casinos. Also almost no individual property taxes fund education as I understand it.
For Nevada that is. Property taxes aren’t like elsewhere in the country as I understand it.
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