Chris Powell: Connecticut’s public-pension racket

"The Worship of Mammon" (1909), by Evelyn De Morgan.

MANCHESTER, Conn.

An angry reader notes that after 24 years as a judge, the Connecticut Supreme Court’s chief justice, Richard A. Robinson, has just "retired" while joining a big national law firm, Day Pitney, which has five offices in Connecticut. "So now," the reader writes, "he will be getting a full pension from state taxpayers plus another full-time paycheck. Why should the state pay him a pension if he is still working? This is why the state is virtually bankrupt. It’s crazy. How come the press doesn’t report this part of it?"

Maybe what's left of journalism in Connecticut doesn't report the pension angle because it's an old story, not that it ever has been told very well.

Robinson's immediate predecessor as chief justice, Chase T. Rogers, retired six years ago after 20 years as a judge and then went to work at Day Pitney too. She now draws an annual state pension of more than $160,000, quite apart from her salary at the law firm. Since Robinson had four more years as a judge than Rogers, his state pension may be a bit larger. Since both retired judges are in their mid-60s, with continued good health they probably will have quite a few years earning at the law firm at least as much as their pensions.

But such opportunities are not peculiar to retired Connecticut judges. Virtually all retired state employees are eligible to do the same kind of thing -- that is, to collect an excellent retirement pension from state government even as they launch second careers. 

The practice is especially popular among state troopers and municipal police officers, who typically can retire with great pensions at a young age -- in their late 40s or early 50s -- and then qualify for other good jobs to take them into their actual retirement.

Sometimes it’s a bit of a racket, as was shown in 2020 by the internationally notorious case of State Trooper Matthew Spina. The trooper was video-recorded by a motorist he stopped in New Haven and the video was posted on the Internet. It showed the trooper hysterical with rage, screaming at the motorist, ordering him out of his car and handcuffing him, bullying and threatening him, searching his backpack, and stomping on his possessions before uncuffing him and letting him go without even ticketing him, since he had done nothing wrong, or at least nothing actionable.

While inflicting this abuse Spina declared that he hated his job and the public and was eager to retire in 14 months.  

Spina appeared to be middle-aged and a little journalism revealed that for five years he had been working so many extra hours that his overtime pay exceeded or nearly equaled his base annual salary of almost $100,000. That is, like many other troopers he was risking burning himself out and driving himself crazy to attain the magical threshold of the state pension system -- three extremely high-earning years from which his pension would be calculated.

State police management readily obliged his mad pursuit of a pension bonanza.

Spina indeed retired the next year and now draws an annual state pension of more than $116,000. If he has another job now, his pretend retirement may be almost as comfortable as that of the retired judges.

Of course Connecticut’s state employee pension system isn’t a racket for everyone, but it  is  often excessively generous. It is a fair question as to why state government should pay large pensions, or any pensions, to people earning substantial amounts in second careers.

But there is a simple explanation. It’s that Connecticut has many more politically active state and municipal government employees and retired employees than it has politically attentive and engaged citizens.

Anyone who sees extravagance here should try putting the pension question to his state legislators. Few legislators are likely to express any criticism, lest they alienate a powerful special interest. If Connecticut is ever to have a better public life, it will need a better public.

Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net).