Employee Retirement System

Trustees for the Employees Retirement System of Texas voted Wednesday to decrease earnings assumptions for its $26 billion trust fund, a rare move that could have major implications for the state budget and the retirement system’s beneficiaries.

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The Employees Retirement System of Texas is considering lowering its earnings assumption for the $26 billion trust fund. Labor advocates fear the move would push lawmakers to cut benefits or require current workers to chip in more. 

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Senators believe they have found a way to save $80 million on health care for state employees. But medical schools say the savings would come at their expense. 

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Sen. Van Taylor's bill would let the public find out when former lawmakers with felony convictions are receiving state pensions

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More than two dozen former elected officials convicted of felonies may be receiving taxpayer-funded retirement pay. But state law keeps the details secret.

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State Rep. Dawnna Dukes announced her retirement in September, but doesn't plan to make it official until Tuesday. That would make her annual pension payout $3,220 bigger.

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Thousands of retired Texas state workers are essentially stuck in 2001. Though health care, food and pretty much everything else keep getting more expensive, their monthly pension checks haven’t budged. 

 

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Between now and the next legislative session, Texas lawmakers will be tinkering with an obscure formula that links their own state pensions to the salaries of state judges. 

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The Texas Senate on Friday voted to beef up the state’s underfunded retirement system for state employees by adding about $440 million to the program, a plan that has received mixed reviews from state employee advocacy groups.

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State workers would pay more into their retirement system but get pay raises to offset the cost under legislation that earned preliminary House approval Monday. 

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Texas House leaders unveiled a plan Tuesday to shore up the state's chronically underfunded retirement system for employees that requires workers to pay more into the system, but gives them a pay raise to offset the cost.

 

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Lawmakers are talking seriously about a 21.5 percent pay raise for state district judges, which would increase the pensions of those same lawmakers by that same amount.

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Political insiders rarely take things at face value, so it’s not surprising that they are scratching their collective heads over Ann Bishop’s sudden hiring and equally sudden departure from the office of Gov. Rick Perry. 

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Days before she became Gov. Rick Perry's chief of staff, Ann Bishop — already the highest-paid executive officer at a state agency — received a $162,500 bonus from the Employees Retirement System, records show. 

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Texas' public pension systems — including the one state lawmakers pay into — have an airtight exemption from the landmark 1973 sunshine law that was designed to let taxpayers known how public money is being spent. But some lawmakers want to change that.

 

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Will the Planned Parenthood brouhaha affect elections? Should state officeholders be able to collect retirement while they're still on the job? And should Texas lawmakers have term limits?

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Texas has scored a 68 out of 100, placing 27th in a national state integrity study. The state got high marks for auditing and for monitoring pension funds, but not as high for accountability of the governor and legislators.

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State Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Forth Worth, shares his concerns about public officials collecting retirement while continuing to work.

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Gov. Rick Perry's use of the obscure provision has shed light on a controversial practice that has remained in the shadows.

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Aaronson on Rick Perry's Texas Enterprise Fund, Aguliar on the DOJ's Joe Arpaio problem, Galbraith on the uncertainty about Texas' electric grid, Grissom and Schwartz of The New York Times on the latest in the Michael Morton case, Hamilton on the first leg of Perry's Iowa bus tour, Murphy and McLain unveil our new campaign finance database, Ramsey et al. go live with the first round of our 2012 election brackets, Root on a GOP rival's queries about Perry's pension play, M. Smith contrasts the various school finance lawsuits and Tan, Dehn and Murphy on a shortage of mental health professionals: The best of our best content from December 19-23, 2011.

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