9 states target pension perks

Legislators aim to shut retirement loopholes

Lawmakers in nine states are advancing legislation to scale back their own pensions by closing loopholes and lucrative retirement plans that have let thousands of former lawmakers earn more in retirement than while in office.

Legislators in three states — Idaho, Iowa and South Carolina — are seeking to end special pension perks that USA TODAY revealed in a September investigation. A resulting story described how more than 4,100 legislators in 33 states stood to benefit from special retirement laws they and their predecessors enacted.

Gov. Nikki Haley and nine South Carolina lawmakers are pushing to close the legislators- only retirement plan, which lets lawmakers collect a legislative pension while remaining in office. Haley, a Republican, called for an end to the practice after USA TODAY disclosed it in September. She said last month in her State of the State speech, “We need to shut down the General Assembly’s own retirement system.”

South Carolina Sen. George Campsen said that passing his bill to close the plan, which pays richer benefits than the pension for ordinary state workers, could make it easier to scale back pensions generally. “People look at the benefits that accrue to state legislators and they’re outraged,” said Campsen, a Republican.

Lawmakers in Idaho and Iowa have introduced measures to stop letting legislators add expense reimbursements of roughly $ 10,000 a year to the salary that’s used to calculate their pensions. Thirteen states have such policies, which can more than double a legislator’s pension compared with what he or she would get if the pension were based on salary alone.

“I don’t think that’s reasonable in this economy,” said bill sponsor Iowa state Rep. Jeremy Taylor, a Republican, adding that he and many other legislators didn’t realize until the USA TODAY story that expense reimbursements are added to their salaries for pension calculation.

In Idaho, a measure to end the practice passed a legislative committee last week. “The bill will fly,” said Rep. Dennis Lake, the GOP sponsor.

After years of sweetening legislative pensions, states have started scaling them back in the past two years as costs have soared for taxpayers.

Some bills this year are identical to measures that failed in previous years, prompting sponsors to try new tactics. “I’m doing this in an election year, which will bring more attention,” Missouri state Sen. Jason Crowell, a Republican, said of his bill to make pensions for legislators equivalent to those for ordinary state workers.

Kentucky state Rep. Mike Cherry, a Democrat, predicts passage of his bill to close a loophole that has let some former lawmakers retire with six- figure pensions by working briefly in top state jobs after leaving the Legislature. “Most of us think this needs to be passed,” Cherry said.