Actually it was Oregon. One was a community college president retiring with a $280k a year pension when she only earned $240k in salary. How? Because they allowed her to cash in years of sickleave, vacation pay, sabbatical pay, car allowance etc to “goose” her final salary to nearly $400k then based her lifetime pension payout from taxpayers based on that one time goose.
It’s still bigger news in Oregon although I hear Illinois has its own incredible system.

 

One of my brothers just retired after 42 years of government service. During that time, 7 percent of his pay was withheld in order to pay him a pension upon his retirement. I suspect that amounted to a hell of a lot of money since he held a fairly high-level position. Even though he was a salaried employee, he frequently put in 70 and 80 hour weeks during periods of significance. At no time did he work partial weeks to compensate for working for free.

Now, he has a nice retirement. I figure that he earned every penny.

 

I was just regurgitating the article in the Oregon paper. They changed the law in 2003 apparently that disallowed the “goosing” of final years salaries for new employees but many boomers are grandfathered into old rules. There will be many following suit in the next decade and the paper is just warning the populace of the oncoming onslaught of very high state pensions.

I’m not really ##ing about their pensions, if the taxpayers of Oregon want to pay them $1million a year then go ahead. Interestingly I have family who teach in Oregon and somehow the teachers were never offered these pension benefits, only high level administrators and direct state employees.

I was really more or less commenting on how the paper said that the courts ruled the state could not change the rules for the boomers, only going forward from 2003 and how the corporations had no problem rewriting the rules for thousands of employees in the private sector with pensions.

 

For whatever its worth to the people trying to decide, I officially turned down UAL for SWA today. I am finishing up class and after a ton of research I calculated that the money is really a wash between the two. I am coming from a heavy international back ground and I really don't care about that anymore. Since I will live in base with whatever company it was most important to me to work less total days and not deal with the **** show UAL reserve typically is. Also stability was very important to me and my wife (who got a vote in this). The kicker for me was the ridiculous flexibility and non-PBS scheduling that no one offers but SWA. All that being said if you really want to work at a "Classic" legacy, UAL is probably going to be a fine place to work. I have friends who have been there between 1-3 years and they totally dig it. One even left SWA for UAL. But not a single one of them said I should switch. They all said United is a good place to work but SWA is pretty awesome too. No one can tell the future and the pay at either company is a lot. This is a really personal and individual decision and I was really lucky to have a choice. They both offer unique advantages and disadvantages that will speak differently to different people. Anybody crapping on either airline flat out don't get it. Go with whats important to you and you will probably end up where you are supposed to be. Good luck and I hope you all end up with your dream job. Let the haters give themselves ulcers justifying their world view.

 

lol.

7% less stolen from taxpayers. Well Whoop Dee Doo.

 

Congrats on the decision . !!

 

Hope it works out for you and your family! Best of luck and congrats.

 

Since you were willing to move to a base anyway, in your case where you wanted to live seems like it should have played the biggest role in this decision. Best of luck in your new abode.

 

SWA or UAL if you live in Denver and QOL is the most important factor?

sorry i like poking around and keeping tabs on most airlines

 

SWA for more days off
UAL for less legs flown.

Also SWA for scheduling flexibility.