How Lawmakers' Pensions Would Grow Under Proposed Budget

This is one in a series of occasional stories about ethics and transparency in the part-time Texas Legislature.

On top of their civic responsibility, every member of the Legislature will have a personal stake in the state budget.

As it stands, the proposed budget includes a 12 percent increase in the base salaries for state district judges. That number — currently $125,000 annually — also happens to be the basis for legislative pensions. An increase in the pay for judges is an increase in the annual pension benefits for members.

The budget would raise the pay for judges to $140,000, an increase that would mean a minimum of $2,760 per year for legislators qualified to retire. Lawmakers' regular annual pay is $7,200, plus a per diem to pay for travel, food and lodging when they're on state business. To qualify for retirement, a legislator needs at least eight years in office. With that, a former lawmaker could begin collecting annual benefits at age 60. With 12 years in state office, that former lawmaker could start drawing retirement at age 50.

The spreadsheet below shows the tenure of every current lawmaker at the end of 2014, rounded to the nearest year; the estimated amount of their base retirement at that time; the amount it would increase with the current budget proposal; and the resulting annual total pension benefit. Actual benefits vary depending on choices lawmakers make in their plans (they can opt out, though few do so), on other pensions, and non-legislative government service and so on. Many members — 85 of the 181 in the House and Senate — won’t qualify for pensions at that point. The rest would be eligible for annual pensions of $27,760 to $140,000. One legislator, Rep. Tom Craddick, R-Midland, would be subject to a cap of $140,000, since the benefit can't exceed the amount of the judicial salary it's based on. One last thing: The changes don’t just affect current members. Lawmakers who have already retired would get the increases in pension payments, too. The retired elected officials class currently includes 513 former legislators, district attorneys and others, as well as 137 survivor beneficiaries, each of whom collects an average of $44,196 in annual benefits.

* The retirement benefit cannot exceed the salary of a state judge; the most a legislative retiree could collect now would be $125,000; the most under the proposed increase would be $140,000.