State workers will have to pay more for their retirement benefits and work more years before claiming them, according to changes to the states retirement plan that the General Assembly approved Thursday.

Working longer means state workers would withdraw less money from the states $25 billion retirement fund a taxpayer-supported fund that accountants estimate will run out of money sometime over the next 30 years if no changes are made. Having state workers pay more an extra $567 a year from the average public employees paycheck means taxpayers will pay less.

The changes plug the retirement systems projected $15 billion shortfall by making it nearly impossible for state workers to get a retirement check and a paycheck at the same time a practice critics refer to as double dipping.

This is a retirement system. And retirement system means that you retire. Its not an annuity that all of a sudden I get to a point where I can collect it, said state Sen. Greg Ryberg, R-Aiken, one of the authors of the bill. We want these people to retire. ... Its not a second income.

Lawmakers killed the controversial TERI program, which allows state workers to retire and return to work for up to five years while they earn both a salary and a retirement check.

Lawmakers also made it much harder for public-sector employers to hire retired workers back to their old jobs. Under the new law, retired employees who return to work would have to forfeit their retirement checks once they earn $10,000 in salary in one year.

And if those public-sector employees state and local government workers plus teachers want to buy so-called service time to retire early, the price is about to go up significantly.

The S.C. State Employees Association supported the bill but said the TERI and return-to-work programs are not the bogeyman that lawmakers made them out to be.

TERI is an incentive to get quality employees to come and work for the state, said Carlton Washington, the associations executive director.

TERI will be phased out over five years. The return-to-work changes and the service time requirements, which allow workers to buy credit for additional years of service, will not go into effect until Jan. 2, 2013. That gives current state workers who are close to retirement six months to make up their mind.

See the rest here:
Retirement system changes OK’d