Maybe I'm completely wrong but this seems like another example of poor legislation -- the SUMMARY of this
bill sounds great to me -- it says it will offer a retirement option for people whose age plus years of service equal at least 80, with an incentive for people who retire BEFORE the start
of the next fiscal year. The TEXT of the bill seems to provide retirement for
the usual 60 year old with 30 years service, OR for a 50 year old with
30 years service, BUT NOT for anyone in between (it looks like a 55 year old with
25 years service would not be covered). It also seems to say that the
incentive is available for anyone who retires AFTER this fiscal year.
Why is this so hard, legislature? If you revise the retirement
bill so that anyone with a combined age/service of 80 is eligible to
retire, many people would take the opportunity without any incentive.
If you offered a 'window' for the incentive -- for instance, for
people who had 80 years combined age/service before October 1, 2009 --
you would get a manageable rush of retirees and open a lot of new
jobs without overwhelming the retirement system. We really need some reform in the defined benefit retirement system. PLEASE get to it before all of our young people leave the
state and the government sinks into further decay!