Double-dippers raise questions of fairness and solvency of public pension funds | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    For years in North Carolina, when teachers and state employees complained about salaries that were lower than their counterparts in the private sector the response from government leaders, particularly in the General Assembly, was that "but teachers and state employees have a better retirement plan than most in the private sector. The theory was that having a good retirement plan was an inducement for public employees to sacrifice for thirty years, until eligible for retirement, and then reap the benefits of "devotion to duty." It worked in thousands of instances with educators and state employees' tenure in those positions greatly exceeding the average in private industry.

    This have changed.

    For one thing, private pensions have become better. But private sector employees can now claim, correctly, that public employees often make more comparatively than their counterparts in private industry.

    But another phenomenon has been growing for years in North Carolina. It can be characterized as more non-state employees wanting into the public sector pension plans.

    Generally, its been a quite movement. Double dipping has been on the increase in recent years. Several years ago high-paid former state employees would retire and begin drawing hefty pensions and then turn around and go back to work with the state in positions that allowed them to continue to draw their pension and yet still draw a state paycheck. Harold Webb, the then head of the State Personnel agency himself was found to be doing it. That created an uproar and a law was passed to stop it.

    Now we have another kind of "double-dipping." It is basically the same, but now rather than return to regular public employment the trend has been for former public employees to go to work with "private" organizations whose business it is to exist because of public employment.

    The Raleigh News & Observer, as might be expected is on top of the issue. In Sunday's edition the N&O spotlights some of the individuals and organizations that participate in the practice.

    One noticeable difference these days is that many of these former public officials who go to work with these non-profit organizations draw considerably higher salaries than would be true if they remain in public jobs. But just as in the earlier days, they still want the benefit of lucrative state pension plans.

    But what the N&O does not mention, which is a growing concern of many state pension plan members and to-be-members is that the state pension plans are now facing harder times than in years past. As plan members, many who bought into the idea a quarter of a century ago that they would be rewarded for dedicated service to the state/public now see that the "double-dippers" not only are faring much better than are they, but these "Johnny-come-laities" are putting a strain on the solvency of the plans for everyone.

    The question is, what's going to be done about it?