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Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Governor Undecided on Return-to-Work Limits
By Barry Massey
Associated Press
SANTA FE — Gov. Bill Richardson says he's undecided on whether to sign legislation that will impose new restrictions on public employees who retire and then return to work for state or local governments.
To help in making a decision, Richardson asked state workers for their views and a majority of those who responded to the administration's survey said the governor should veto the legislation. The governor has until Friday to sign or veto bills passed by the Legislature.
Under the proposal pending before Richardson, a government retiree would have to wait a year before returning to work and there would be a $30,000 yearly limit on how much they can earn in their job before their pension is suspended. However, the legislation would permit governmental employers to hire retirees for critically needed jobs without subjecting the individual to the earnings cap.
Currently, a person can retire from government, wait 90 days and go back to work for the state, city or county — earning any amount without the loss of pension benefits.
Critics of the practice call it double-dipping and say workers in their late 40s or 50s can retire with full pension benefits and then return to an upper-level management job in government — with combined retirement and salary sometimes exceeding $100,000 a year.
One division director in the Richardson administration earned about $177,000 in combined salary and pension benefits, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican.
The legislation will apply to retirees covered by the Public Employees Retirement System, which allows workers to retire at any age after 25 years of service for the state or a local government. Some law enforcement officers can retire with fewer years of service. About 2,200 retirees had returned to work for governmental employers as of February, which represented about 9 percent of the pension program's retirees.
The state Personnel Office sent an e-mail to workers asking them to fill out a questionnaire on the pension legislation. According to the governor's office, 7,286 state employees responded to the survey and 53 percent said Richardson should veto the return-to-work legislation and 47 percent said he should sign it.
The legislator who sponsored the measure, Rep. Luciano "Lucky" Varela, D-Santa Fe, questioned the validity of the survey.
"I hope the governor does what's right and not what's politically popular to do," Varela said in an interview. "I think the right thing to do is to enact the bill."
Varela said the current return-to-work provisions have caused morale problems among rank-and-file employees who can't move up into higher-paying administrative jobs because some are filled by former retirees.
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