In defense of those "double dipping," they earned their retirement. They retired and then the agencies they worked for didn't want to lose them and hired them back. They aren't getting anything "for free." They don't get to rack in a "new retirement" package. They don't get extra insurance benefits. Perry is a hypocrite, but what he is doing here isn't some "evil" plot to defraud the Texas public. The defrauding took place during his reelection. One might say that those stupid enough to vote for the man defrauded themselves.
Why doesn't the government defer retirement payments until after the employees stop working then? Serious question, and I apologize for my naivete because I don't work for the government and I haven't thought too much about retirement yet.
Part time or full time. Makes no difference. It is up to the agency that hires them. And no, they don't draw retirement from a particular agency, they draw it from the state. Their retirement is based on all their years of service for the state, not one agency. They could have worked for several over 20-30 years. Again, they are getting what they earned, and if they are considered so vital to the state agency that they retired from that the agency hires them back post-retirement, then they are seen as worth whatever post-retirement salary they are being paid. The agency isn't "paying them twice." No one is. The state retirement system is paying them the retirement they earned. If a state agency then hires them to do work for that agency, it is no different than that agency hiring someone off the street. The main difference is that the retired former state employee has experience someone off the street does not have.
the agency that hired him is funded by tax dollars, so yes it matters to all who pay taxes. there are other people who could do these jobs, younger people who need to start building their retirements
And after a decade or two or three, they'll know what the retired state employee does now. Hey, I'm not trying to defend Perry, who I despise, but what he is doing is only weird because of the office he holds, the various statements he has made, and the office he's running for.
three major conservative endorsements for Rick Perry today, from Ace, RedState, and Big Government. read them here: http://minx.cc/?post=324875 http://www.redstate.com/dan_mclaughlin/2011/12/19/dont-settle-rick-perry-for-president/ http://biggovernment.com/mikeflynn/2011/12/19/393640/
I'm not saying what the state agencies are doing is bad. It's probably cost-beneficial in the short-term. And there's a lot of problems outside of the agencies if no one out there is qualified to do a retiree's job. Then again, if the only way to be qualified is to be working for the state agency itself, then that's bad planning on the agency's part too. This seems inefficient in the long-run.
Kim, what happened (and this has nothing to do with Perry) was that a while back the state, in a misguided attempt to save money, offered incentives to veteran state employees if they would retire early. Thousands took them up on the offer. The idea was that the private sector could be contracted out to do the same work for less money. It was a disaster. Not only did the private sector prove unable to fulfill their contracts, leading to chaos in delivery of state services, they also proved to be more expensive. It was a typical conservative idea that may have been well intentioned (I'll withhold comment on that!), but ended up being a complete cockup of biblical proportions. Agencies ended up begging many top executives, department heads, skilled now retired former state employees and so on, to return to their former positions. They are usually paid less. No benefits are paid, as they are included in their pensions. It was a huge help in addressing the boondoggle. This is the sort of thing the average Texan has no idea occurred. The state leadership (I won't comment about which party most of that leadership belonged to) certainly didn't advertize their failures. People might remember this the next time they call for privatizing the public sector. It ain't easy and is apt to become a chaos writ large.
Deckard is too nice. "Well intentioned" wrt to cockups when privatizing means at best rigid conservative/libertarian ideology that government is always ineffective. More likely it means: let my buds and major contributors see if they can make some big bucks off it to kick back to me. If not they'll credit me for trying and besides who cares as my real constituency the wealthy don't need no unemployment comp, job retraining, vocational rehabilitation, mental health serives outside their private insurance, public education etc.
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