The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "pension payments" ...
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America's Great State Payroll Giveaway
A state-employed psychiatrist in California made $822,000 by clocking in 17 hours every day last year, including Sundays and holidays. An employee cashed out with $609,000 for unused vacation when she retired, claiming she never took vacations in a 30-year career. A highway patrol officer collected $484,000 in salary, pension and leave payments. The chief money manager at a Texas pension fund got $1 million in salary and bonuses while posting investment returns that trailed those of peers who earned a quarter as much. Bloomberg News used freedom-of-information laws to obtain 1.4 million payroll records from the 12 largest states and show how taxpayers funded these out-of-control expenses and more, while at the same time states cut funding for universities, public safety, health care, schools and services aimed at the neediest residents.
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Good as gold: State pensions facing scrutiny
Public employees in Ohio have better wages and benefits than the taxpayers who support them. Taxpayer money funds the system which allows workers to retire a decade or more sooner than workers in the private sector. Also, more than one in four public school superindentents had received pension payments and salary simultaneously.
Tags: pension; private sector; public employee; pension funds; superintendents
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"Double Dipping"
Nearly 1,000 retired UConn professors are receiving duel payment from the state in the form of a paycheck and a pension. A law was enacted in 2007 that was designed to limit the number of retired professors who could be on the payroll and the length of time they could be hired, but as revealed by the Hartford-Courant, that law has been all but overlooked.
Tags: UConn; pensions; retirees; Connecticut Office of Policy and Management; Hugh Macgill; Ernest Marquez; Central Connecticut State University; Gov. M. Jodi Rell
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Toxic Debt
"In 2007, the financial world came unhinged. A rise in late mortgage payments triggered hedge fund blowups, massive Wall Street write-offs, ousted CEOs, Congressional hearings, and intervention by central bankers and finance ministers. In a series of exclusive and prescient stories, Bloomberg exposed the ties that connected unregulated mortgage brokers, fee-hungry Wall Street banks, conflicted credit rating companies, and the managers of money market funds and public pension plans."
Tags: mortgage payments; Wall Street; brokers; banks; credit rating firms
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New Jersey's Pension Peril
This four-part series investigates the state of New Jersey's beleaguered pension system. The authors discovered a concerted effort by government insiders to cripple the public pension system through generous giveaways, financial gimmickry and outright abuse. Gross mismanagement cost the fund $18 billion dollars in less than 2 years.
Tags: pension; pension reform; fraud; state government; pension system; Open Public Records Law; pension payments; corruption
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Pension System Devours Public Money
The Oregonian found that the cost of Oregon's Public Employees Retirement System, once a model marriage of smart investment and generous benefits for government workers, has rocketed out of control. Growing pension costs could drain the budgets of local and state governments and force cuts in services.
Tags: Oregon; PERS; government workers; pension system; public money; pension payments; state government
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Daddy dearest
Murphy reports on a pension plan that had awarded millions of dollars in pension payments to county officials. The story results in the resignations of the plan's creator, F. Thomas Ament, Milwaukee county executive, and his cronies, who had expected to take advantage of the plan.
Tags: government; administration; cronyism; pay-off; finances; savings
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Portsmouth city managers' secret perks
The Virginian-Pilot conducted an investigation concerning Portsmouth city managers' secret perks. Even in lean years, the city council has paid lucrative bonuses and doesn't think taxpayers needed to know. The bonuses have been so secret that the city failed to disclose a $14,097 retirement payment that City Manager V. Wayne Orton received this fiscal year when The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star made an initial inquiry.
Tags: Wages Retirement salary corruption officials compensation benefits pension plans
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No title (id: 4238)
Boston Globe finds abuse and negligent administration of Massachusetts's disability pension system for public employees; reporters find cases of contrived accidents resulting in millions paid in undeserved disability pension payments, March - August 1982.
Tags: None