

How college workers use loophole to boost pay - cwan
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2012217904&zsection_id=2003904401&slug=retirerehire27m&date=20100626

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gte910h
So if they were in a defined contribution plan (as in the "other plan"
mentioned in the article), they'd be able to draw on the money in that plan by
this point in their lives yet still work.

I'm not sure this is even morally questionable.

Sure, the state of Washington may have underfunded their retirement plan, but
that's poor planning, not necessarily these guys' problem.

Couple this with the fact their defined contribution plan didn't exist for
most of these people when hired, I _really_ don't see that this is a moral
problem. Sure, the state may wish to change the law to make it harder to do,
but that's just changing the law to make it easier to fund the pension, it's
not a morality issue.

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spoiledtechie
Double Dipping is a menace on tax payer dollars as well.

The same thing happens with Fire departments, Police Departments, Elected and
City workers. Its a complete mess and a huge waste on tax payer dollars. You
would be UTTERLY surprised how much of YOUR money goes into schemes like this.

We are not talking small dollars here either. For every Firefighter that does
this, we are talking over $200k over the course of the life of the pension.
Now multiply that by how many people that actually do this in one city. And
its not just the cities. Its the Counties and state officials as well. Its a
horrible thing they do, but they get away with it because there are no local
checks and balances. People(citizens) just don't care...

And don't think that this doesn't happen in your city or your county. It
happens EVERYWHERE.

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allenp
What's the difference between retiring and taking a job elsewhere and retiring
and taking the same job? If these people want to keep working to make
additional money on top of their pension payout that is their choice. The
bottom line is that the pension draw is going to happen after they've been
working for 30 years.

The only scheming I see is the possibility of circumventing state mandated
hiring practices to not have to compete for their old jobs back.

What is really broken, in my opinion, isn't the double-dipping as much as the
system that makes double-dipping a drain on the public good. If instead of a
pension the money was drawn from a 401k would we have the same feelings
against this behavior?

Edit: Tried to clarify/stay focused.

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spoiledtechie
Its not just the old jobs back. They do this because they know its possible
and allowed.

Lets say your out in the work force. Work for 20 years and decide to retire.
You don't get your pension until you turn 65 in the U.S. These double dippers
start their pension right away. So they are collecting on the pension while
they get rehired. Government pension usually does not stop paying out when you
decide to go back to work in your mid 40's. They pay you even if you took the
same exact job back. So not only is a official getting paid their current
salary, they are also getting paid their pension on top of that and they are
only 40. When they go another 20 years and retire, their pension doubles. And
if they are alive for the next 40 years after, we as tax payers are paying
double their salary.

Its immoral.

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bphogan
With the exception of these higher-level executive positions, the state gets
workers on the cheap for those 20 years. My student interns graduate making
1.5 to 2x what I make per year. Seriously, are you gonna do Oracle DBA duties
for $50k a year at a university or $100k a year in industry?

Taxpayers don't want to pay high state salaries, even though they end up doing
so with the pensions.

And I'm one of those burdened taxpayers too. I have to pay state taxes at my
state job :) So I literally pay part of my own salary.

I choose to work here for lower pay. But I have a _great_ job that I love.
There's no better reward than teaching people to program. Not everyone's in
that same boat. And I won't lie - if the opportunity presented itself for me
to retire, keep my pension, and come back to work, I don't think I'd feel too
bad about it.

Can you honestly say you wouldn't do the same?

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yummyfajitas
_Seriously, are you gonna do Oracle DBA duties for $50k a year at a university
or $100k a year in industry?_

In my experience, the administrators making $50k in academia would be making
precisely $0 in industry. Unlike academia, industry cares about getting things
done.

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bphogan
In my experience, "getting stuff done" in the academic world isn't about
making money for the business owner. It's about teaching students. So I think
your statement is a little unfair. Network admins, DBAs, and developers have
to keep the infrastructure working so people can teach, and students can
learn.

Try explaining to a student that you lost her transcripts, or explain to the
government how someone got in and got 10,000 SSNs from your database.

The challenges are the same. But it's a lot harder when you can't hire the
DBAs who know how to stop that kind of stuff cos you can only pay $50,000.

And there's no shortage of under-qualified IT "professionals" in industry. If
you've ever done code audits for others, like I have, you know what I'm
talking about.

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jacktasia
Hrm, "workers" seems like the wrong word here. They're basically executives
(going by their titles). Also, I work at a university and my pay hasn't
changed for three years...probably because of stuff like this.

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ultrasaurus
I suspect this works best in an environment where your responsibilities are
murky at best -- it's a bull market in educations, charge whatever you want
and enrollment goes up.

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ja27
This happens all the time at my alma mater. It's very frustrating to see
almost one third of the tenured faculty positions in a department held by guys
that retired years ago while new PhD grads are fighting 100-to-1 odds to get a
tenure track job. It really cripples innovation and steers good people out of
academia.

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yason
So why are they getting this pension before they're 65 (or whatever the
retirement age is there) in the first place?

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powrtoch
I was hoping "loophole" was a new programming language I could start learning.

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chronomex
And I was thinking "college workers" meant student employees. I admit that I
was looking for a way to boost my own income ...

