In all the splash over a new state employee retirement plan approved Thursday in the House, one alternative remains in the Senate.
This week, state Sen. Gilda Jacobs, D-Huntington Woods, quietly unveiled a retirement incentive proposal aimed at a few hundred employees of the state Legislature, the governor’s office and the state judiciary. It drew the ire of several state employees because it offers a pension multiplier of 1.75 for those whose ages and years of service equal 75; that’s higher than the pension multiplier of 1.6 offered for all state employees in the House bill.
Employees earning $50,000 annually with 30 years of service who retire with a multiplier of 1.6 would get an extra $1,500 a year, compared to the normal 1.5 pension multiplier. A 30-year employee retiring with a multiplier of 1.75 would get an extra $3,750.
Jacobs said she introduced the bill in the Senate as a sort of stop gap measure if state employee reform was not passed this session.
“No matter what, this group of employees is sort of getting lost in the shuffle of term limits,” Jacobs said. “They are not protected by civil service. They are at-will employees....My goal is to go in and try to protect these at-will employees who are going to be losing their jobs.”
