By Contrast with Common Sense
The stunning thing about this pension reform proposal from Republican state representatives Patricia Morgan and Michael Chippendale is that it wasn’t the way the system was set up to work from the beginning:
With these two objectives in mind, we have introduced HR-6193. This legislation lets an injured employee receive a disability pension under the current rules. However, if he or she is fortunate enough to rehabilitate the injury, or find other employment that is unaffected by it, then the rules change slightly.
The disabled retiree can work and earn an amount of money that, when added to the disability pension, will equal 100 percent of their pre-injury salary. However, with each additional dollar, they would lose one dollar from the disability pension. This method lets each retiree be made whole, while at the same time protecting taxpayers from abuse.
At this point, with the history of abuse, I’m not sure that Rhode Island could afford to stop there in its reforms, but it’s a marker of the lunacy by which the state operates that reforms so distinctly sound like policies that one would assume were already in place.
It’s a great concept but who’s keeping track. I don’t mean who will be watching but who will be calculating the difference. They should use a set percentage or a schedule. I envision the state hiring more people just to recalculate pensions every year.
I’d like to see what the unfunded liability using the REAL rate of return which is about 4.75%. I’m thinking something north of $20 billion with OBEP included.
Also I would like to see how many hundreds of millions will be added to the unfunded liability by making sodomite partners eligible for survivorship pensions. Pure idiocy.