Why are all these folks smiling?

How many retirees do you know who have a pension of $536 a month for putting in only four years?

Thought so, we don’t know anyone either. But that may be why the folks shown above are smiling. Heck, on the inside they’re belly-laughing!

You may have choked as we did after reading the article in yesterday’s Intelligencer Journal/New Era – the one about the retirement packages that former elected “public servants” are enjoying. After all, the yearly pensions these folks are getting have to be just about the same as the average Lancaster County civilian sector retirees get, right?

Yeah, right!

During their years of “public service,” these people worked tirelessly representing their constituents (sure they did!) while insuring that their personal recompense continued to grow and their pensions continued to grow. [It’s important to know these folks enjoy low-cost health insurance “most residents can only dream about” too. “In addition to the pensions, most departing lawmakers also collect generous health care benefits. ‘If they took care of citizens of Pennsylvania as well as they take care of themselves, we’d be in nirvana,’ said Tim Potts, co-founder of Democracy Rising PA, a government reform group.”]

Kind of like the retirement benefits and health benefits the average Lancaster County worker who toiled at his job in a factory, an office, a retail store, a farm, a foundry, in a truck, or elsewhere gets.

Yeah, right!

According to the article, these legislator pensions are ” … certainly well above anything you’d find in any private-sector firm in Pennsylvania,” said Richard Dreyfuss, an actuary and retired director of employee benefits for Hershey Foods who serves as a senior fellow at the Commonwealth Foundation.”

To get the full impact (and to compare their padded revenue streams and retirement pensions with your own circumstance), you really have to read (thoroughly) the entire article by Tom Murse, Staff Writer for the Intelligencer Journal/New Era.

“Ex-lawmakers draw pensions – Yearly sums for former state officials range from ($90,867 to $6,434)”

“State Rep. Tom Creighton’s decision to accept a pension that could be worth nearly $30,000 a year when he retires in 2012 has made many readers wonder: What are other retired lawmakers from Lancaster County getting?

“The Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era, which has reported on the various amounts over the years, sought up-to-date data on all former members of the Legislature with ties to the area and who are still living.

“The findings, obtained through a Right-to-Know request with the State Employees’ Retirement System (SERS), show that gross annual annuities range from a high of $90,867.48 paid to former state Rep. Joe Pitts, who is now in Congress, to a low of $6,434.88, paid to former state Rep. Roy Baldwin, an engineer from Manheim Township.

“All told, their retirement paychecks total nearly $600,000 a year.

“SERS administers what is known as a “defined-benefit” retirement plan, which guarantees state employees such as legislators a set annual income after they leave office. The amount of each legislative pension is based on a formula that considers years of service and salary.

“The retirement plan for lawmakers currently in office is one of the most generous in the country and about twice as rich as those offered in the private sector, experts say. It is funded by member contributions of 7.5 percent of salary, taxpayer money and investment returns.

“‘It’s certainly well above anything you’d find in any private-sector firm in Pennsylvania,’ said Richard Dreyfuss, an actuary and retired director of employee benefits for Hershey Foods who serves as a senior fellow at the Commonwealth Foundation.

“Several lawmakers get an annual pension that is substantially larger than the median household income in the state, which was $49,288 in 2010, the most recent year for which there are Census Bureau estimates.

“Here’s what retired state lawmakers with ties to the county get, ranked in order from high to low, according to SERS.

• Pitts, a Chester County Republican who served 24 years in the state House and several years as a school teacher before being elected to the 16th Congressional District seat, gets $90,867 a year, or  $7,572 a month. He retired from the House in  December 1996. Since then he’s collected an estimated $1.4 million on top of his base congressional pay, which is $174,000 this year. Pitts also will be eligible for a federal pension when he retires. The 16th District includes Lancaster County.
• Gibson E. Armstrong, a Republican from Refton who served 32 years in the Legislature, gets $79,717 a year, or $6,643 a month. He  retired from his 13th District Senate seat in December 2008. Since then he’s collected an estimated total of $239,151.
• Marvin E. Miller Jr., a Republican from Lancaster who served 18 years as a state representative in the 96th Legislative District, gets $62,130 a year, or $5,178 a month. He retired from the House in December 1990. Since then he’s collected an estimated $1.3 million.
• Kenneth E. Brandt, a Republican from Elizabethtown who served 18 years as a state representative in the 98th Legislative District, gets $60,912 a year, or $5,076 a month. He retired in December 1990. Since then he’s collected an estimated $1.3 million.
• Jere W. Schuler, a former social studies teacher and Republican from West Lampeter Township who served 20 years as a state representative in the 43rd Legislative District, gets $55,372 a year, or $4,614 a month. He retired in December 2002. Since then he’s collected an estimated $498,352.
• Noah W. Wenger, a Republican from Stevens who served 30 years in the Legislature, gets $47,758 a year, or $3,980 a month. He retired from the 36th District Senate seat in December 2006. Since then he’s collected an estimated $238,789.
• David “Chip” Brightbill, a Republican from Lebanon County who served 24 years as a state senator, gets $45,076 a year, or $3,756 a month. He lost his 48th District seat, which covered part of Lancaster County, and left office in December 2006. Since then he’s collected an estimated $225,380.
• Arthur D. Hershey, a Republican from Chester County who represented part of eastern Lancaster County in the House until the legislative districts were redrawn in 2003, gets $40,004 a year, or $3,334 a month. He retired from his 13th District seat in December 2008 after 26 years. Since then he’s collected an estimated $120,012.
• John E. Barley, a Republican from Lancaster who represented the southern part of the county for more than 17 years, gets $35,050 a year, or $2,921 a month. He abruptly resigned his 100th District seat without explanation in April 2002. Since then he’s collected an estimated $338,816.
• Jere L. Strittmatter, a Republican from Manheim Township who served as a legislative staffer and then 14 years in the House, gets $27,132 a year, or $2,261 a month. He lost the 97th District seat to Baldwin in the 2002 primary. He’s collected an estimated $244,184 since December 2002.
• Thomas E. Armstrong, a Republican from Marietta who served 12 years in the House, gets $12,551 a year, or $1,046 a month. Armstrong lost his 98th District seat to Republican Rep. David Hickernell in the 2002 primary. Since December of that year he has collected an estimated $112,960.
• Terry R. Scheetz, a Republican from Stevens who served 12 years in the House, gets $10,104 a year, or $842 a month. He retired from the 99th District seat in December 1994. Since then he has collected an estimated $171,764.
• Baldwin, who served four years in the House before being ousted in the 2006 GOP primary by now-Rep. John Bear, gets $6,435 a year, or $536 a month. He has collected an estimated $32,174 since leaving office in December 2006.
• Katie True, a Republican from East Hempfield Township who served 16 years in the House and as director of the Pennsylvania Commission for Women, became eligible in December 2010 for an annual pension of $26,443. But she took a job in Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration as head of the Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs, a move that froze her monthly payments of $2,204 in April of this year. True served eight two-year terms in the House — four in the 37th Legislative District and four more in the 41st.
• Former state Rep. Gibson C. Armstrong, who represented the 100th district from 2002 through 2006, has not applied for his pension yet because he is under the age of 50.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Be sure to read the comments to this article following accompanying the Lancaster Newspapers’ article; citizens are beginning to respond to the elected “public servant” greed outrage.]

Corporately-owned “public servants

Ironically, this comic strip appeared in the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal/New Era on Monday, too. It is funny, but not in a “ha ha” way; it’s “funny” in a sick, perverted way. That we can openly joke about the illicit, corporately-owned political “public servants” reaching out for more money to support their ever-growing largess accumulated at the public trough is not funny. It is repulsive, vile, disgusting and just plain wrong.Now is the time to take away that “trough.” Elected “public servant” positions ought not be lucrative life-time careers. Now is the time to insist that elected “public servants” distance themselves from corporate “pocket-stuffing.” Now is the time for citizens to step up and demand accountability from these elected “public servants.”

It is time to revamp the entire bloated, self-serving, corporately-financed, elected “public servant” system.

Term limits for elected offices make sense.