Working the System and it’s Legal?
Picture courtesy of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
How sweet would it be to just work short of two dozen years and retire for life with a full pension. Let’s just sweeten the pot and give you one hundred percent paid medical insurance for life. Would that not be the ultimate job or what?
No you would not be working for some drug cartel or some underworld mob family with friends for life so to speak. Nope, working for this good old boy network in good old Mass A Two Sticks is where you need to fill out an application.
It gets better… How could that be you dare to ask? I’m going to tell you how and you will want to call our 1-800 number and place your order today! You can retire and find state work elsewhere and still collect a full pension without limitations. How can this be Papamoka you might say. Well the Boston Globe has the scoop and this is what they have to say…
MBTA's retirement plan pays off for two
Ex-officials get pension, work government jobs
By Andrea Estes, Globe Staff
August 21, 2007
Two former top officials at the MBTA are taking advantage of the generous terms of the agency's retirement plan, which allow employees to begin receiving a full pension at an early age, while simultaneously collecting six-figure salaries in other government jobs.
Former MBTA general manager Michael Mulhern, 48, who became executive director of the MBTA Employees Retirement Fund after retiring, takes home more than $350,000 a year: a salary of about $225,000 and a pension of about $130,000.
James Rooney, 49, a former deputy manager at the MBTA, now makes $255,000 as executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, while drawing an MBTA pension of more than $70,000.
If they were employees covered by the state pension plan, they would have qualified for much less. To get a full pension, most state employees must wait until they are 65, but MBTA workers can receive a full pension after 23 years of service, regardless of age.
If they had retired from the state, Mulhern would have qualified for a $35,000 pension and Rooney just $3,000, and they would have faced strict limits on how much they could earn in a government job.
As the MBTA struggles to pay its bills and has been forced to raise fares three times in six years, some specialists say the pension plan is a fringe benefit the state can no longer afford. The T receives one-fifth of every sales tax dollar paid in Massachusetts. - Boston Globe
WOW! Does anybody think this is not a sweet deal or what? It gets better… using accumulated sick and vacation time that is good for life you can buy into the early retirement with saved time! If that isn't good enough I hear that you can buy into the plan with cash! Place your order today. The MBTA takes Mass sales tax only. Some conditions apply... ummm somewhere but apply for your pension today! This offer (loop hole) may end soon... or not?
I for one thought that the MBTA was a state run agency but apparently they have a different set of rules to go by. Why should the MBTA have such a sweet heart deal when every other state government job is limited to the laws laid down for state pensions?
Then you have to ask yourself, why the hell isn’t the legislature fixing this hideous and abusive loop at tax payers expense? Jim Braude of 96.9 FM Talk Radio hit the nail on the head today when he stated, and I’m paraphrasing, that it is a simple fact of life that the legislature is not going to fix it because it may upset the trough that they one day hope to feed at.
You as a voter don’t even have a say as to fixing this mess and the legislature will turn its back on this issue just as Finneran proved that it could be done when he over ruled the repeal of the income tax rollback voter approved ballot question. When it comes to disgusting waste, you only have to look as far as Beacon Hill and the gutless gentry club that is our legislature.
Years ago they tossed tea into Boston Harbor for just such a similar outrage. Now all we have to do is flip a few tea bags out the window as we pass through the ever leaking Big Dig tunnels. Please stop and pay the toll though at the end of your protest. Our state really needs the money.
Papamoka
How sweet would it be to just work short of two dozen years and retire for life with a full pension. Let’s just sweeten the pot and give you one hundred percent paid medical insurance for life. Would that not be the ultimate job or what?
No you would not be working for some drug cartel or some underworld mob family with friends for life so to speak. Nope, working for this good old boy network in good old Mass A Two Sticks is where you need to fill out an application.
It gets better… How could that be you dare to ask? I’m going to tell you how and you will want to call our 1-800 number and place your order today! You can retire and find state work elsewhere and still collect a full pension without limitations. How can this be Papamoka you might say. Well the Boston Globe has the scoop and this is what they have to say…
MBTA's retirement plan pays off for two
Ex-officials get pension, work government jobs
By Andrea Estes, Globe Staff
August 21, 2007
Two former top officials at the MBTA are taking advantage of the generous terms of the agency's retirement plan, which allow employees to begin receiving a full pension at an early age, while simultaneously collecting six-figure salaries in other government jobs.
Former MBTA general manager Michael Mulhern, 48, who became executive director of the MBTA Employees Retirement Fund after retiring, takes home more than $350,000 a year: a salary of about $225,000 and a pension of about $130,000.
James Rooney, 49, a former deputy manager at the MBTA, now makes $255,000 as executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority, while drawing an MBTA pension of more than $70,000.
If they were employees covered by the state pension plan, they would have qualified for much less. To get a full pension, most state employees must wait until they are 65, but MBTA workers can receive a full pension after 23 years of service, regardless of age.
If they had retired from the state, Mulhern would have qualified for a $35,000 pension and Rooney just $3,000, and they would have faced strict limits on how much they could earn in a government job.
As the MBTA struggles to pay its bills and has been forced to raise fares three times in six years, some specialists say the pension plan is a fringe benefit the state can no longer afford. The T receives one-fifth of every sales tax dollar paid in Massachusetts. - Boston Globe
WOW! Does anybody think this is not a sweet deal or what? It gets better… using accumulated sick and vacation time that is good for life you can buy into the early retirement with saved time! If that isn't good enough I hear that you can buy into the plan with cash! Place your order today. The MBTA takes Mass sales tax only. Some conditions apply... ummm somewhere but apply for your pension today! This offer (loop hole) may end soon... or not?
I for one thought that the MBTA was a state run agency but apparently they have a different set of rules to go by. Why should the MBTA have such a sweet heart deal when every other state government job is limited to the laws laid down for state pensions?
Then you have to ask yourself, why the hell isn’t the legislature fixing this hideous and abusive loop at tax payers expense? Jim Braude of 96.9 FM Talk Radio hit the nail on the head today when he stated, and I’m paraphrasing, that it is a simple fact of life that the legislature is not going to fix it because it may upset the trough that they one day hope to feed at.
You as a voter don’t even have a say as to fixing this mess and the legislature will turn its back on this issue just as Finneran proved that it could be done when he over ruled the repeal of the income tax rollback voter approved ballot question. When it comes to disgusting waste, you only have to look as far as Beacon Hill and the gutless gentry club that is our legislature.
Years ago they tossed tea into Boston Harbor for just such a similar outrage. Now all we have to do is flip a few tea bags out the window as we pass through the ever leaking Big Dig tunnels. Please stop and pay the toll though at the end of your protest. Our state really needs the money.
Papamoka
Link to this post and we will reciprocate.
Special thanks to 96.9 FM Talk radio and the Boston Globe on this post...
Technorati Tags:
MBTA, Tranist Authority, Boston Busses, The T, Riding the T, Bay State Corruption, Golden Pension, Mass Pensions, State House, State Treasurer, Governor Patrick, Sal Demasi, Eagan and Braude, Talk Radio Boston, 96.9 FM Talk, Tax Reform, Sales Tax, Retirement Funds, Tim Cahill, Finneran, Romney, Governor Romney, State waste, Budget Buster, Health Care for life, Political Hacks, Barbara Anderson, Citizens for Limited Taxation, Budget Watchers, State Budget, Tim Murray
Labels: Andrea Estes, Boston, Boston Globe, Corruption, Crooked Pensions, MBTA, Pension Abuse, Pensions, State House
posted by Papamoka at
8:51 PM
3 Comments:
Wow, that's bizarre! Hook me up in Mass-A-Two-Sticks, bro!
Last I heard, Chicago was pretty much the same.
Work for the CTA for 20 years and retire with a generous pension. Didn't matter whether you worked hard or slept on the job.
No, no, no your wrong ! No one gets a FULL pension with 23 years of service (maybe the exception is management). I tried to correct Jim Braude and Margery Eagan on their radio show about this rumor. You are allowed to leave the T after 23 years and 3 months. It takes 30 Plus years to get a FULL pension...believe me because I left the T with 30 years and 2 months and still didn't get a FULL pension! Unused sick time CANNOT be used to make the 23 1/4 years ! Taxpayers--don't worry though, bus drivers don't live very long after retiring due to the nature of the job, which makes them sick. (Google the subject for your own enlightenment), they usually die prematurely. You'll end up saving money ! That's what I call an "early buyout". Now don't you feel better trying to make a bus driver's life a little more MISEREABLE. How would you feel if someone told you that if you worked 30 years--that you would receive certain benefits...then, all of a sudden you hear, "we decided to change the rules now." How would you feel ? And you make 23 years sound like 23 months. Like someone's STEALING something they didn't work for. The executives can do whatever they want. It's the frontline people that do the work and get screwed.
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