Colonel Pension
Reed Hillman, champion of pension reform, wants to end traditional pension plans for most new state workers. This is the same Reed Hillman, by the way, who will take home a traditional state pension this year worth $105,110.76.
Hillman, a retired cop with one of the largest pensions on the state payroll, makes an awkward champion of pension reform. But Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey and Hillman, her running mate, have made the issue a centerpiece of their campaign. They want to follow the trend in the private sector and replace guaranteed defined-benefit plans with 401(k) retirement plans.
``Often, those accounts grow faster than traditional plans," they say. See recent market turbulence for evidence that is not always the case.
Healey and Hillman don't have to worry about retirement. Healey married well, and Hillman spent nearly 25 years with the State Police. Hillman retired seven years ago as head of the State Police, and started collecting his pension at 50. (Try that in the private sector.) He receives 74 percent of his final year's salary of about $145,000 -- a salary fattened by 30 percent in Quinn payments, those boondoggle educational bonuses that no good cop would ever leave on the table. (Note: Of 57 retired state workers who took home pensions of at least $100,000 last year, 14 were state cops like Hillman.)
H&H think 401(k) accounts will be good for the state and employees -- cops and firefighters excepted, who will get to keep their guaranteed pensions under their plan. ``When I came along there was no such thing as a 401(k)," Hillman says.
A darn good thing, too, Colonel. Consider the math: A 50-year-old would have to invest about $1.6 million in an annuity to be assured of the same $105,110.76 lifetime payout. If Hillman was good for the State Police, the State Police were good to him, too. ``I think I did a great job," he says.
The state pension system is in sore need of reform. H&H are right in proposing an end to the antiquated system of 106 separate pension systems, the worst of them run like investment clubs. But their 401(k) proposal is more about ideology than savings. New state employees already pay 9 percent of their income -- and more for any earnings over $30,000 -- toward retirement. The average annual state pension is only $22,000.
Hillman calls Charles Lincoln, the recently famous retired Brockton cop who secured a $140,000 pension by playing the system to the max, including using 251 sick days his last three years on the job, ``a poster child for fraud and abuse in the present system." Reed Hillman is no Charlie Lincoln, but then Charlie Lincoln is not running for lieutenant governor on a pension-reform platform, either.
If the old-fashioned pension was fair for Colonel Hillman, how can he say it is not fair for those who follow?
Neighborhood news.
Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary has withdrawn its foolish lawsuit against Washington philanthropist Betty Brown Casey, who showed she is as tough as she is generous. Last June I reported the world-famous Boston hospital had sued Casey, who had made a major donation to support the research of Steven Zeitels, a voice doctor whose patients included Steven Tyler, Cher, and Julie Andrews, and then wanted to move the money when Zeitels departed for Massachusetts General Hospital.
In settling, Mass. Eye & Ear returned $700,000 of the $1 million, which will shift to MGH. Hospital president F. Curtis Smith also apologized in writing to Casey. ``The thing about Betty is she is a person who stands on principle," says her Washington attorney, Brendan Sullivan. Says the hospital: ``We are pleased that were able to work out a compromise and that the case is settled."
Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at bailey@globe.com or at 617-929-2902. 
