Retire at 50 and collect more than $100,000 a year – that’s the plan for a special group of state workers. Some members of the Illinois State Police can end up collecting millions of dollars, according to a study by Taxpayers United of America.
“The pensions for the state police are outrageous,” TUA President Jim Tobin tells 2 Investigator Pam Zekman.
He says each of the top 200 state police pensioners receive an income of more than $107,000 per year. Their former state agency has the earliest retirement age and the highest pension payout over time, Tobin says.
A state trooper with 25 years on the job can retire at 50 and get 80 percent of his pay. Add overtime and yearly cost-of-living-adjustments, and some end up making more in retirement than they did while they worked.
Take John Lofton, for example. He was making a salary of $80,801 a year when he retired in 2002. He also got a check for $65,482 for overtime, CBS 2 has learned.
Overtime payments boosted Lofton’s monthly salary of $6,800 by $3,100 a month for the purpose of pension calculations, an Illinois State Retirement System official says.
Lofton’s current pension, with COLAs, is now $134,026, compared to that $80,800 annual salary when he retired. ...More HERE
