13 September—Desktop computer still down, digital wizard coming over this afternoon to diagnose, repair, maybe even upgrade the old thing to be ready for Windows 11, which I don’t look forward to; I haven’t even learned to peacefully co-exist with Windows 8.1. Meanwhile, the little laptop is filling in admirably. Since, however, the little laptop keys don’t get along too well with my fat, clumsy fingers, I’ll be brief with today’s comment.

We read that this past year Connecticut state employees have been paid for lots and lots of overtime. Surprised? I have no idea whether the overtime hours were actually worked, but let’s assume most of them were. After all, there were actually employees struck down with the novel coronavirus as well as other maladies, among legitimate reasons for the remaining employees to put in overtime.

But nowhere have I seen reference to what’s likely a significant—if not the primary—driver of the excessive overtime burden on taxpayers: the deal Gov. Dannel Malloy and his [sic] Democrat General Assembly made a few years ago with state employee unions that moderately reduced benefits for those who retired after June 2022.

Something over a quarter of state employees will be eligible for retirement by then.

When you consider that state police and correctional officers, among others, get pensions based on their highest three years’ wages (normally their last three), and that all the overtime put in during that lucrative triennium is contractually included in the pension calculation, it certainly makes sense for eligible employees to retire before the end of June 2022 and to put in—and to have put in—as much overtime as possible before the wonderful retirement date.

As an example of the indecent giveaway, even before the sell-out to the unions, a good number of non-command state police officers were being paid over $200,000 a year—lots, if not most, of it in overtime—prior to retirement, resulting in handsome six-figure pensions.

It certainly stinks. But I really can’t blame them. I’d do it myself . . .