Back on my last post, I gave you a link to one of Cindi Scoppe’s periodic columns reminding us all just what an appalling boondoggle the retirement benefit for SC legislators is. In case you didn’t follow the link, I’ll make it easier for you by posting this relevant excerpt (note that I’ve boldfaced the best bits):
There are many things that make this pension system extra special, from the fact that such a thing even exists for part-time employees to the fact that former legislators can keep building up credit in it at super-subsidized rates even after we kick them out of office. but the worst thing about it is those super-subsidized rates: For every dollar that state legislators contributed to their pensions last year, state taxpayers contributed $3.33. By contrast, for every dollar regular state employees contributed to their own pensions last year, taxpayers contributed a relatively paltry $1.43.
The reason taxpayers have to contribute so much is that legislators’ pensions are quite generous. Regular state employees who work 30 years can receive a pension equal to 43 percent of their final salary. A legislator (or former legislator) who contributed to the system for 30 years could receive a pension equal to 1.45 times his legislative salary. Yes, you read that right: Legislators can draw pensions that are nearly 50 percent more than their salary.
There is no justification for any sort of legislative pension system, much less one that taxpayers subsidize so much more than the one for the full-time career employees who put the laws the Legislature passes into action, and still less one that allows defeated legislators to get the same benefit as those who actually are serving us. If legislators need to be compensated better — and I think a case can be made that they do — that compensation needs to come while they’re actually serving us, and it needs to be aboveboard where everyone knows about it, in their salary.
Federal pension laws require the state to pay benefits to everyone who already has retired under this system; they might even require the state to pay benefits to everyone who is vested. But there’s nothing — other than the legislators themselves — that requires us to keep giving those super-subsidized rates to current members, or to enroll new ones.
The very next thing that column said was, “You’d think that as tight as the legislative budgets are, someone would at least bring up that topic…”
And the good thing about the bills I wrote about back here is that their sponsors ARE at least bringing it up, even though it’s tucked away in the much-larger issue of retirement for actual state employees. So give them snaps for that.
But don’t lose sight of the fact that it’s a completely separate issue, and one that could be handled much more simply, by eliminating the legislators’ benefit altogether.
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