This happens everywhere. The Toronto Transit Commission does the best 4 years of your last 5 or something like that. I knew two people that worked there until they retired. The first was a "field clerk" (basically a secretary for a construction site) the other was a construction inspector.
They both paid the same percent into the pension yet despite salary differences of $35k vs $85k they both took home the same amount from the pension fund because the field clerk managed to get promoted to construction inspector for the last 4 years of her 35 year career there. I tried to show them how stupid this system is using Excel spreadsheets and how either the lifelong construction inspector is getting screwed or the taxpayer who backstops the pension is getting screwed but they wouldn't hear it. Whenever someone complains about their defined benefits public pension cutting their payments I just roll my eyes because it seems like these people don't want to care about how things work, they pretend that there is a magical piggy bank with endless money.
The worst part is that the construction inspector got bored at home so he eventually came back through an engineering firm as a "consultant" doing the same job he did before, but pulling both a salary and a pension now. Madness.
They both paid the same percent into the pension yet despite salary differences of $35k vs $85k they both took home the same amount from the pension fund because the field clerk managed to get promoted to construction inspector for the last 4 years of her 35 year career there. I tried to show them how stupid this system is using Excel spreadsheets and how either the lifelong construction inspector is getting screwed or the taxpayer who backstops the pension is getting screwed but they wouldn't hear it. Whenever someone complains about their defined benefits public pension cutting their payments I just roll my eyes because it seems like these people don't want to care about how things work, they pretend that there is a magical piggy bank with endless money.
The worst part is that the construction inspector got bored at home so he eventually came back through an engineering firm as a "consultant" doing the same job he did before, but pulling both a salary and a pension now. Madness.