Today’s Hartford Courant featured a front page article discussing Yankee’s recent release of a list of 24 retired state employees who receive pension payments in excess of the governor’s salary of $150,000.
Larry Dorman, a spokesman from the state employees’ union sharply criticized the findings and accused the Yankee Institute of holding to an “anti-worker agenda” and of “undermining the American values of fairness, democracy, and rights for working people.”
Where’s the “fairness” in asking hard-working CT taxpayers to foot the entire bill for overly generous pensions—or even the average pension of $26,000? Our state faces a huge unfunded pension liability, and experiences high outbound migration rates due to increasing taxes to meet the state budget.
Yankee suggests a defined-contribution pension system plan that would lessen the cost to taxpayers by incorporating a 401(k)-style program in which state employees contribute to their own retirement accounts.