Retirees' cost-of-living raises eyed as budget fix
While state workers are taking home less money, the people who used to hold state jobs are being paid more.
Retirees 66 and older who worked for 35 years, for example, saw an extra $790 in their pension checks this year even though most consumer prices have flat-lined.
That’s under the main kind of annual benefit increases in the oldest retirement plans for state and school district employees. Ending those cost-of-living increases would save the state’s main fund an estimated $415 million – a number that might be too big to pass up for lawmakers trying to close a $5.3 billion shortfall in the fund.