More than 40 former UConn professors and administrators are among the top-100 retirees, along with a dozen from the health center, all of whom make more than $150,000 a year, according to state records. About 15 of the top-paid retirees worked at the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services in what is the tip of the state’s retirement pyramid.
In fact, while the median state employee retirement income is about $38,000 a year, 124 elite pensioners are paid $150,000 and above, while a total of 1,665 make more than $100,000, plus health benefits, according to the State Comptroller’s office. Seventeen former employees make more than $200,000, according to current state records.
At the top of the list is Dr. Jack Blechner of West Hartford, a former UConn Health Center physician and professor who will make $337,266 in retirement income this year. Not far behind is John Veiga of Coventry, a former UConn business professor who is on track to make $334,828 this year.
Stephanie Reitz, spokesman for the university, said that the higher-end pensions go to long-time state employees who are in the top tier of benefits.
“Many faculty and administrators at UConn have spent most or all of their careers at the university, with many of the current retirees having been hired under earlier versions of the State Employee Retirement System than those hired in more recent years,” Reitz said. “Additionally, their average earnings tend to be higher, which reflects the specialized requirements and responsibilities of their positions in academic leadership, medical care, and other work.”
State Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano said that attempts to put a ceiling on pensions, limiting them to $100,000 have failed along partisan lines because of the Democratic majority in the General Assembly.
“What burns me up is here we have the new UConn president saying free tuition, free tuition, legacy costs, pensions,” Fasano said. “We’re giving them all this money. No pensions in the state should be greater than $100,000, period. We in the Senate have proposed it time after time after time. If you go into government you want to do good and the money doesn’t matter. But a lot of these people are making a ton of money. It will never be addressed until you change the majority.”
In 2016, the General Assembly approved legislation that capped pensions at $125,000 for non-union employees hired after July 1 of that year, and would prohibit them from the kind of cost of living raises that have pumped up benefits for many of today’s top-tier retirees.
Many Retirees Are Paid Below The Median
In fact, while some of the high retirement payments are eye-popping, the average state employee retirements are decidedly below the $38,000 median. An average mid-level unionized worker making a mid-level $51,500, gets $17,500 a year in retirement pay after 20 years on the job, according to Council 4 of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, which represents 15,000 state employees."Before listening to those who breathe fire about anything grounded in fact, it's important to step back and acknowledge that our current pension system, created by collective bargaining, provides dedicated public servants with benefits that are fair and moderate -- well under $20,000 a year for current tier employees,” said Larry Dorman, program coordinator for AFSCME Council 4.
“We don't have a benefit problem,” Dorman said. “We have a funding problem caused by the failure of past legislatures and governors to properly fund pension promises. Our state union coalition has addressed that shortfall through multiple employee-concession agreements and pension funding agreements that will stabilize the system.”
Dorman noted that in 2017, the coalition of state employee unions agreed to wide-ranging savings of $24 billion projected over 20 years, plus shorter-term budget savings.
“The bottom line is that our members have sacrificed their fair share to protect vital public services and improve the state's financial health,” he said, “It's time for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations to do the same.”
State Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, agreed that in general, rank-and-file state employees make no where near the large six-figure retirement incomes as some of the medical professionals and university personnel that come under scrutiny from government critics.
“Those kinds of benefits should be the exception, not the rule,” said Looney, the highest-ranking member of the Senate. He stressed that the Tier 4 is essentially a 401(k) plan. “Since 2011 Connecticut has not really had generous pension plans,” Looney said.
“It’s not that public-sector pensions are too high, it’s that private-sector retirement benefits are too low,” Looney said. “Part of the problem in our economy is the decline of union protections.”
Coping With The Pension Crisis
And while in recent years the state and union leaders agreed to a more-frugal pension tier for the next generation of state employees - 16,000 of them expected to be hired over the next few years - the State Employees’ Retirement Plan (SERS) is a major underfunded program. Lawmakers and State Treasurer Shawn T. Wooden have recently lowered their expectations on return on investments, but even those seem too high, according to state fiscal reports.Employees pay about $194 million a year into SERS. The state kicks in $1.4 billion and the fund yields about $876 million in investment income, according to Comptroller Kevin Lembo. It pays out about $1.96 billion, with administrative costs of $3.5 million.
The SERS plan is not to be confused with the state Teachers’ Retirement Fund, in recent years one of the nation’s most dangerously under-funded. It was revamped this year by Gov. Ned Lamont, Wooden and state lawmakers under an agreement with the Teachers’ Retirement Board to avoid a huge, $3.4 billion payment to keep afloat the fund, which supports about 37,000 former teachers whose average annual pay is a little more than $47,000.
Connecticut teachers pay into their retirement program with 7 percent of their incomes, plus 1.25 percent for insurance and 1.45 percent for Medicare. But years of neglect from the General Assembly created one of the largest unfunded liabilities in the nation.
“This plan put the TRF on a path toward long-term sustainability while protecting taxpayers and puts our state on more stable footing going forward,” Wooden said recently. “Had we done nothing, our annual required payments were projected to peak in 2032 at more than $3.4 billion, which would have crippled the state budget and was simply not realistic for the TRF.”
About $900 million is estimated to be saved over the next five years, while the $13 billion in unfunded teacher-retirement liabilities will be extended for 17 years. “The plan also lowered the assumed rate of return on the investments in the TRF, from 8% to 6.9%, which is a much more conservative and realistic estimate of how experts predict investments will perform in the future.”
Both the TRF and the State Employees Retirement Fund realized only a 5.9-percent return at the end of the state budget year on June 30, according to Wooden’s office. But the lower rates of expected investment returns will help give the state a better picture of its two main pension plans,
“As a result of this change, we have a more transparent picture of the true unfunded long-term liabilities and a realistic plan to address such liabilities,” Wooden said. “Moreover, getting to the right return assumption is critical to the health of the pension plan as it will allow us to maximize returns without taking on unreasonable risk. It's this fiscally prudent approach that helped lead to the upgrades in our bond rating outlook for the first time in 20 years as well as record demand from investors to purchase our bonds.”
Wooden, a Democrat elected last year, has announced an imminent “listening tour” of forums, visits and round-table events to engage state residents and discuss the state’s economy and investment strategies, along with workforce development issues, personal finance and retirement, business startups, job creation and financial literacy.
“Since many issues contribute to turning Connecticut’s economy around, I want to create community conversations that can profile the successes, challenges, and ways we can better align Connecticut’s policies and programs to expand economic opportunities in our state.”
©2019 the Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, Conn.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
