LASERS-Did you know?

LASERS provides a retirement option of 20 years of any age.

However, you will be ineligible for the IBO and DROP. The retirement benefit is actuarially reduced based on the number of months you are away from regular retirement and our age. The closer you are to regular eligibility, the less your reduction.

LASERS-Did you know?

LASERS provides a retirement option of 20 years at any age.

However, you will be ineligible for the IBO and the DROP. The retirement benefit is actuarially reduced based on the number of months you are away from regular retirement and your age. The closer you are to regular eligibility, the less your reduction.

Hurricane-hit state retirees get chance to return to work

A bill passed earlier this year will allow state employees who were working in hurricane-affected areas and took an early retirement between Aug. 31, 2005, and June 30, 2006, to return to work without the two-year wait.

Cindy Rougeou, executive director of the Louisiana State Employee Retirement System, said there is no way to tell exactly how many of the 395 state employees who chose early retirement during that time were in the 37 affected parishes.

State officials said after the storms, many state jobs were lost and employees were forced into early retirement.

Deidre Wright is one of many state employees affected by the 2005 hurricanes that are eligible to use a new law to get back what the storms took away.

After the storms, people took the early retirement option because they needed the benefit and insurance coverage to survive while they were jobless, Wright said.

“The other people (in non-affected areas) took it because they wanted to,” Wright said. “The rest of us took it because we needed to.”

She wanted to return to work but was concerned about her options, so she called state Sen. Jody Amedee, D-Gonzales, who authored the bill. “I didn’t have trouble passing it,” Amedee said.

Now those retirees can return to work and, if they pay back their benefits, can regain their status in years of employment, he said.

State Senate Bill would let a quarter of Michigan State Workers retire early

Thousands of veteran state workers - more than 25 percent of them - could get enhanced pension benefits under an early retirement bill that passed the Michigan State Senate on Thursday.

The Senate voted 21-16 for the measure, which Senate Majority Leader Michael Bishop said would shrink government and help resolve the state's budget crisis.

However, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm remains strongly opposed to an early retirement program.

"An early out will result in more children left unprotected, more gas pumps and bridges left uninspected, fewer state police patrolling our roads," Granholm spokeswoman Liz Boyd said.

Under the early retirement plan, state workers would be eligible if their age and years of service add up to at least 75.

Currently workers must be at least 55 years old with 30 years of service or 60 years old with 10 years of service for full retirement benefits.

The plan sweetens the retirement benefit by increasing the pension formula by 16.7 percent. It is similar to plans offered several times in the past.

Pensions would be based on years of service multiplied by the worker's final average salary times 1.75 percent - up from the current factor of 1.5 percent.

Whether there are savings will depend on how many workers retire and how many are replaced.