Walker Punching Legislative Pals' Tickets

It sure does pay to have been a good GOP legislative soldier when Scott Walker has jobs to pass out.

He will replace SportsmensGate-tainted and ex-Assembly Leader Scott Suder at the PSC with another retiring Assemblyman, Jeff Stone.

Walker installed former Assemblymen Mark Gottlieb as WisDOT Secretary, Mike Huebsch atop the all-powerful DOA and Scott Gunderson as Executive Assistant, the number three post, at the DNR.

And there's former State Senator Jeff Plale who voted against his own party's labor position at a pivotal moment, lost a primary to Chris Larson and won two appointments from a grateful Walker. Today, Plale is State Railroad Commissioner after an earlier Walker-provided stint managing buildings for the DOA.

Are there others? Who'd I'd forget?

In addition to the huge boost in salaries these jobs provide - - legislators make just under $50,000 and many of these gubernatorially-appointed jobs pay in the high five or low six figures - - there are also major pension uppers that could be paid year-after-year upon eligibility.

State pension benefits, governed by procedures principally won by unions on behalf of all state employees, including managers and elected officials, are calculated off a number based on the average  one's highest paid three years of service.

And every one year of service is calculated at 1.6% years.

So - - a legislator retiring after 20 years while earning about $50,000 a year on average in his or her last three years would receive 32 years service credit - - 20 x 1.6% = 32% and that means the pension would be calculated at 32% of $50,000, or $16,000 a year.

But if that legislator if the legislator closed out his or her state career with three years in the state bureaucracy at $90,000 yearly salary, the calculation then becomes 32% of $90,000 or just under $29,000 - - 80% more per year had those last three years been served at the legislative salary level, not the bureaucrat's.

For some of small-government devotees, working for Walker wins the jackpot - - for life after retirement.