The other day, I noted how Rhode Island’s civic system treats government employees as a “special class.”  Well, now some are complaining about the proposed pension settlement:

For retired state worker Brian Kennedy [a former human resources supervisor], the proposed pension lawsuit settlement — unveiled late Friday after months of closed-door negotiations — was disappointing and insulting.

The 66-year-old North Providence resident, who worked 33 years in state government before retiring in 2005, says retirees bore the brunt in the settlement, not the active government workers whose labor unions hammered out the agreement with Governor Chafee and state General Treasurer Gina Raimondo’s offices through a court-ordered mediation process.

The data that the state gave to the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity for its RIOpenGov pension site differs a little from what’s reported in the Providence Journal, but it shows a Brian L. Kennedy who retired in 2005 at the age of 57, with 35 years of “credited service.”  Over his career, Mr. Kennedy put $97,272 into his pension, and as of the fiscal year 2013 report, he had already received $575,758 back.

Multiplying his FY13 payment of $67,844 by his life expectancy (i.e., no COLA ever again), the site estimates that he’ll get back a total of $1,881,657.  That’s 19 times his investment, bringing in significantly more than the median Rhode Island income annually for almost thirty years of retirement.

Put differently, it will be as if the state paid Mr. Kennedy an extra $53,762 beyond his salary for each of his 35 working years.

We should definitely have sympathy for the people whom the state and labor unions took in with promises that could never be kept, but come on.  A little grace and community spirit from the people who make so much of having “served” the public would be in order.  After all, taxpayers are supposed to simply accept the constant increases that they face at every level of government or face accusations of selfishness and greed.