According to analysis from the Raleigh News & Observer, Gov. Perdue’s pension could reach $60,000 per year when she retires after this year. But, the calculation is a bit tricky.
As a state employee, Perdue’s pension is derived from the average of her four highest-paid consecutive years. So her $130,629 salary as governor. Factor her eight years as lieutenant governor into the calculation, and Perdue’s annual pension could equate to $28,500 a year.
And she spent 14 years as a state lawmaker in the legislative retirement system, so she could get a second pension check for $11,600. All told: about $40,100
But it’s not so simple. A provision in state law allows Perdue to transfer her 14 years as a state lawmaker into the state employee pension fund. So if her pension is calculated with 26 total years of service, it could mean an annual pension of $62,000 for the rest of her life — a roughly $22,000 boost.
According to research conducted in 2010 and released by the National Center for Policy Analysis, the unfunded liability for both pension and nonpension retirement benefits for state and local government employees across the nation could be as much as $3.1 trillion. That comes out to about $9,900 for every man, woman and child in the county.
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