01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, June 18, 2005

MANCHESTER, Conn.

MANCHESTER Town Manager Steven R. Werbner has applied to become Tolland's (Conn.) town manager, and he'd probably be a fool not to take the job if it is offered, because if he goes to Tolland, Manchester will make him rich.

Having worked in various town-government positions in Manchester for almost 30 years, Werbner is now entitled to collect an annual pension of about $90,000 a year, even though he is only 52. While the salary Tolland is advertising for its manager's job -- $88,000 to $114,000 -- would be as much as $40,000 less than the $129,000 Werbner earns in Manchester, that $90,000 annual pension payment from Manchester would cover at least twice any reduction in Werbner's total income if he took the job in Tolland.

Given his experience, Tolland probably will offer Werbner something closer to $114,000, so if he accepts the job he probably will end up with annual income of more than $200,000 a year.

If he holds the Tolland job for 10 years or so until he reaches the age at which most people stop working, Manchester will have paid him about a million dollars, not really as retirement compensation but instead as a bonus for working elsewhere.

Werbner's situation is no fluke. Two years ago Hartford's budget director, a city employee for 20 years, "retired" at 48 to take a similar job in Stamford at a similar salary, more than $100,000, while immediately collecting $50,000 annually in "retirement" compensation from Hartford.

Indeed, retirements that are really the start of second careers underwritten by generous pension benefits are common in public employment in Connecticut. The rationale for extravagant pension benefits is that they are necessary to attract and keep good people in government. But increasingly these extravagant pension benefits are causing people to leave, not to stay.

The public that pays for making Connecticut a public employee paradise may think that "pension" or "retirement" benefits are meant to support people when they are no longer working, not to give government administrators more compensation than the governor. The public also may think that times are hard in government in Connecticut and that this or that service must be curtailed because public needs are becoming overwhelming even as tax support of those needs is drying up.

In fact government in Connecticut is always rolling in money even as elected officials lack the political courage to confront the primary beneficiaries of that money, the government's own employees, whose unions are the most politically influential special interests.

When the lucrative "retirement" of Hartford's budget director and his transfer to the Stamford job was disclosed, state Sen. Andrew Roraback, (R.-Goshen) proposed legislation to reduce state government financial aid to Hartford by an amount equal to the city's pension program extravagance. While some members of the state Senate's Democratic majority said they deplored the Hartford situation, Roraback's proposal was defeated on a party-line vote, the Democrats unanimously in support of extravagance.

This extravagance still can and should be addressed on both the state and municipal level. Government-pension benefits should support people who are no longer working, not subsidize people in beginning second careers. State law and municipal ordinance alike should prohibit payment of such benefits to any public employee before a traditional retirement age, such as 62 or 65, or before his or her incurring a disability that prevents him from working, or at least should reduce benefits in proportion to income a beneficiary continues to earn by working.

The Democratic majority in the Connecticut General Assembly may not want to do anything about this problem, but the Democratic majority on Manchester's Board of Directors should. If it doesn't, the Republican minority on the board should make it an issue in this year's municipal-election campaign. Connecticut should want its veteran public employees to be able to retire comfortably. Connecticut should not want them to collect luxurious retirement benefits when they are still working and getting paid so much better than ordinary taxpayers.

Chris Powell, a frequent contributor, is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester, Conn.