News-Journal Exposes General Assembly Pension Scam…More To Follow
Every couple of years, retired state employees get something like a 2% pension increase. If they’re lucky. If there’s money for it. If the legislators are in a giving mood.
However, for a not-particularly small, but select, group of state legislators, a pension windfall is realized whenever certain veteran legislators retire or, in the case of the ethically-compromised Terry Spence, are defeated. Doesn’t matter if there’s no money for it. They get it. Uh, and we’re not talking 2% either:
Spence’s retirement boosted the minimum monthly pension payout for former lawmakers — and those still serving — by 23 percent in 2008, a News Journal analysis shows.
First, read the excellent article by Chad Livengood in today’s News-Journal. Also make plans to read the Sunday News-Journal where he will unveil yet another particularly egregious pension rip-off by these ‘honorables’.
Let’s make clear that, when it comes to today’s highlighted rip-off, we’re not talking about ALL legislators. We’re talking about legislators who had either retired by 1997 or who were serving in 1997. Many of those serving in 1997 still ‘serve’ today. 17 in fact. And 76 retired legislators also get this windfall. Simple math reveals that 93 current or retired legislators got a 23% pension boost when Terry Spence was defeated.
So why is 1997 so important?
A provision tucked deep in the pension plan for legislators elected before 1997 bases their pension on the salary of the highest paid legislator, typically the House speaker or Senate president pro tempore.The little-known perk is referred to as the “escalator clause” or “Super COLA” and will make pensions for that group of legislators continue to grow every time the highest-paid lawmaker retires until they all die off.
In 1997, the General Assembly put an end to the escalator clause for legislative pensions, except for those lawmakers in office at the time.
In other words, they made sure that they exempted themselves from this alleged ‘reform’. 62 legislators, ladies and gentlemen, who made sure that they and they alone would receive these windfalls for the rest of their misbegotten days.
Just so you know who ‘they’ are, here is the roster for the 139th Delaware General Assembly, which was in session during 1997, the year that this ‘reform’ was enacted. Anyone elected after this year would not get the ‘Super-COLA’. Here is a list of those still serving from this General Assembly:
Senators: McDowell, Marshall, Henry, Sorenson, Blevins, Sokola, McBride, B. Ennis, Bonini, Simpson, Bunting, Venables.
Representatives: Dennis P. Williams, Keeley, Hudson (nee Capano), Gilligan, Lee.
Regardless of whether they’re still serving or not, those on the 1997-’98 legislative roster, along with those who retired prior to 1997, all received that 23% increase when Terry Spence retired.
It’s a rip-off, pure and simple. The only defense seems to be that the rip-off loophole was closed in 1997.
Here’s what Delaware’s dimmest bulb, Colin Bonini, said about it:
If legislators had given regular state employees an escalator clause, they could earn a pension based on “what their boss makes,” said Sen. Colin Bonini, R-Dover South.“That is wrong. The good news is we fixed it,” said Bonini, who was elected in 1994 and is one of the last legislators grandfathered into the old system.
Right. They fixed it going forward. But only after making sure that each and every one of the 62 of them would reap the benefits from this rip-off. Including Bonini.
And let me make this clear. Not everyone was in on this ‘fix’. No, we’re talking the Nancy Cooks (especially the Nancy Cooks), Terry Spences, and the other powerful and ethically-challenged amongst the legislators. This was an inside job. And here’s what it means:
Spence’s retirement would let current Sen. Harris McDowell retire next year after 36 years in office with a $50,165 annual pension at the end of 2012 — 17 percent more than the base annual salary for legislators.”That’s not something I pay very much attention to,” said McDowell, a Wilmington Democrat and co-chairman of the Joint Finance Committee.
Yes he does. And so do most of the other legislators and/or retired legislators licking their drooping chops for that next windfall. Because the rules that apply to virtually every other state employee do not apply to state legislators. Never have.
It’s long past time that we make sure that they do. They’re supposed to serve, not to reap unwarranted windfalls from their alleged service.
Wow. “Increasing my personal wealth” probably wasn’t on their campaign literature, but it should have been.
McDowell, to me, seems especially interested in using his office for personal financial gain.
McDowell is running the SEU the way DelDOT runs the roadways – promise double what you can fund. D’OH – Story in today’s NJ.
Lavelle is asking for a full criminal investigation of the DelDOT realty politically connected boondoggles. These pension deals are pretty awful. Coonsies left office with a similar advantage from a clause slipped into law by Gordonberry. Rich Pryzwara, Annie Farley (who is collecting a mega pension AND consultant pay -yes Clark brought her back to help Marcus Henry at Community Services TWO PAY CHECK Annie) and David Singleton all got the extreme county pay day pension rates secured before publicity forced Coons to cancell the program.
It’s time for me to ask again why legislators are even included to the state pension plan. It’s a part-time job and out in the real world, PT positions don’t typically get full pension benefits. Besides, I still think that elected officials and political appointees shouldn’t be in the pension plan — they should be able to contribute to a 401(k) set up by the state that they can (or decide not to) contribute to.
People I talk to about running for office always cite the pension plan as a major reason to be in office. This is absolutely the wrong incentive. Legislators who are working on imposing more austerity on state employees and departments than they impose upon themselves need to be out of office.
Cassandra writes:
“It’s time for me to ask again why legislators are even included to the state pension plan. It’s a part-time job and out in the real world, PT positions don’t typically get full pension benefits.”
Cass and I both know that that’s a rhetorical question. The answer is:
“Because they write the laws and they make sure that they take care of themselves.”
Why wasn’t this news in 1997 – or in any of the years since? Hasn’t it all been a matter of public record since the day it was first proposed?
To be fair, they couldn’t have excluded themselves from the increases if they wanted to. The State Constitution forbade them from altering their own retirement plans.
I don’t think the State Constitution does any such thing. The Super-COLA was not a constitutional creation, it was a legislative creation. Besides, even if it WAS constitutionally-mandated, there is a clear process for amending the Constitution. You will note that that’s not what happened.
Don asks a great question. To a large degree, it was b/c the Legislative Hall press was lazy and uninterested. At least two members of the press corps around that time went on to work for, wait for it, individual caucuses within the Delaware General Assembly. They weren’t about to risk their future job options. The more ambitious reporters, if there were any such animals, just wanted to get the bleep out of there.
The kind of reporting we’re getting now from the News-Journal is precisely what I wish we had had for the last thirty years.
A couple more points. Don, in addition to having a passive press, virtually all the important deliberations were closed to the press, like Nancy Cook plotting and scheming on this stuff with the Joint Finance Committee and the Controller General’s office.
And Cass, the point you made will prove to be even MORE germane once you read Sunday’s article. You might want to have some cryogenically-frozen blood on hand to forestall boiling. It’s THAT disgusting.
Uh, you completely missed the point. The Constitution doesn’t allow them to change their own pensions at all. It’s in the article you linked to.
“When pension reforms were passed in 1997, the constitution prohibited lawmakers from changing the terms of their own pensions, or retirees, while in office, Roy said.”
The General Assembly can amend the Constitution by passing identical constitutional amendments in two consecutive sessions.
They might not have gotten it done until 1999, but they could have gotten it done. Believe me, they didn’t WANT to get it done.
And when it comes to feeding off the public trough, Roger Roy is a poster boy. Check out his ‘Transportation Management Association’, which was largely funded by the General Assembly while he was a member of the General Assembly and chair of the Transportation Committee. Yet another article waiting to be written…