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More than 30 Milwaukee city employees - including two aldermen and the elections chief - are simultaneously earning a city paycheck, drawing a city pension and building credit toward a second city pension, records show.

That unusual "triple-dipping" arrangement is legal in Milwaukee, at least for now.

But it's not allowed in the state or Milwaukee County retirement systems, or at most - if any - other public pension systems around the nation, officials say. And the Common Council recently acted to prohibit a second pension for any retiree who is rehired after December.

"I just think one pension is more than adequate," said Ald. Michael Murphy, a city Pension Board member who sponsored the measure.

But the ordinance couldn't legally cut pension benefits for any of the 32 employees already on track for a second pension, said Murphy and Mayor Tom Barrett.

Among those employees, the top earner is Sue Edman, who is paid $83,117 a year as executive director of the city Election Commission and draws a $76,023 annual pension as a retired police captain, for a total of $159,140 a year. That's almost $12,000 more than Barrett's $147,336 annual pay.

Barrett said he factored Edman's pension into her salary by bringing her in at the bottom of her position's pay range when she was hired. Six years later, she's still below the midpoint of that range, and the city probably would be paying more if it had hired someone else, Barrett and Edman said.

After more than 28 years on the force, Edman said, "I always planned on retiring and collecting my pension from the Police Department, because I was entitled to it . . . I would not have accepted this position if I had not been able to collect my pension."

Edman estimated her second pension would be about $1,500 a month, less than a quarter of her police pension.

Other top earners include:

Richard Moore, paid $70,000 as police facilities manager, plus a $75,440 pension as retired Milwaukee Public Schools facilities chief, for a total of $145,440. MPS employees who are not teachers are covered by the city's retirement system.

Moore's combined pension and wage is less than $1,000 below Police Chief Edward Flynn's $146,202 salary. He did not return calls seeking comment.

Ald. Robert Puente, paid $73,222, plus a $67,253 pension as a retired police captain, for a total of $140,475.

Puente did not return calls seeking comment.

Ald. Terry Witkowski, paid $73,222, plus a $53,086 pension as retired police safety director, for a total of $126,308.

After 31 years on the job, Witkowski had been retired for more than three years when he won a 2003 special election. Now, he says, "I'm back in the city service, serving the public again in a different position."

Had someone else been elected, the city would still be paying Witkowski's pension and the other alderman's salary, plus benefits for both, he argues. Therefore, by his calculation, the city is saving some $20,000 in benefits, Witkowski says. City retirees who return to work have a choice between retiree health care and the more expensive active employee benefits package, said Jerry Allen, executive director of the city retirement system.

When Witkowski first ran in 2003, and when he sought a full term in 2004, "there was talk of double-dipping, which was a fact," he said. But it wasn't a factor in his 2008 re-election campaign because he was running against former police union leader Bradley DeBraska, another city retiree, he noted.

Like Edman and Puente, most of the two-pension employees are retired police officers who wanted to lock in the higher pension benefits provided to police and firefighters before they moved on to civilian jobs with lesser retirement benefits and often lower pay, Allen said.

Many of those former officers are in jobs specifically designed for ex-cops. Using retired officers to conduct background investigations on new employees is more cost-effective than assigning that task to active detectives and sergeants, as the Police Department previously did, said Mike Tobin, executive director of the Fire and Police Commission.

At the state level, the practice of rehiring retired public workers recently came under scrutiny after two high-ranking University of Wisconsin-Green Bay administrators retired and then returned to the same positions, earning both their salaries and their pensions. A state investigation found the university violated state policy by agreeing to rehire Vice Chancellor Tom Maki before he retired, bypassing the required 30-day waiting period. Maki has announced he will resign.

Milwaukee's current pension rules are more generous than either the state policies now under fire or those governing the county's often-criticized pension system.

The county suspends pension checks for retirees who return to county jobs, then credits those employees for their additional years of service, providing a higher pension when they retire again, said Mark Grady, deputy county corporation counsel.

State retirees who return to work must choose between receiving their pension checks and receiving health insurance and other benefits in their new jobs, according to the state's Legislative Reference Bureau. If rehired employees choose to receive benefits and earn additional pension credit, their state pension checks are suspended until they retire a second time, the bureau said in its analysis of a bill introduced by state Rep. Duey Stroebel (R-Town of Cedarburg).

Stroebel's bill would suspend all pension payments for rehired retirees until they retire again and would prohibit them from earning additional pension credit during their second stint, although it would allow them to obtain health insurance. Gov. Scott Walker has endorsed the legislation, which would apply only to retirees rehired after the measure is enacted.

Before 2006, the city used a complicated set of regulations, bargained with city employee unions, to determine whether rehired retirees could continue to receive their pensions, credit toward a second pension or both, depending on when they were hired, their age, how long they had been retired and what kind of job they were in. Five years ago, however, the city repealed all those rules after attorneys raised legal concerns about age discrimination, Allen said.

Nothing replaced the repealed rules, with the result that employees can retire, return to work in a new job with no waiting period and immediately start collecting their pensions and accumulating credit toward a second pension, Allen said.

"I never heard of such a thing," said Keith Brainard, research director for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, whose members run pension funds covering two-thirds of the nation's state and local government employees. Although it's possible some other retirement systems allow double pensions, retirees who return to work usually are required to give up either their pension checks or their credit toward additional pension benefits, Brainard said.

The city's Pension Study Task Force was expected to recommend eliminating the triple-dipping, said Murphy, the task force chairman. But he said he thought the issue was important enough to take action without waiting for the rest of the panel's report.

Aldermen passed Murphy's ordinance, 14-0, on Oct. 11. Ald. Bob Donovan was not in the council chamber for the vote, although he was present earlier in the meeting. Barrett signed the measure, which will take effect the last week of December.

Witkowski said he voted for the ordinance in recognition of current attitudes toward public employees.

"It's what the popular logic of the day is," Witkowski said. Most "people would be happy if I received nothing and worked 80 hours (a week)."

The Journal Sentinel filed an open records request to obtain the names, wages and pension benefits of employees currently receiving a pension and earning credit toward a second pension.

Besides Edman, Moore and the two aldermen, the two-pension workers include:

Police specialists: Almost two-thirds are in positions designed for retired police officers. That includes 15 police service specialist investigators, 14 full time and one part time. They conduct background checks, and when time allows, they assist with police investigations that don't require a sworn officer in the field, Tobin said.

"These were the perfect people to help us with background checks" because of their training, Barrett said.

Another five, all part time, are police service specialists, a position that typically involves working in the Police Department garage.

Tobin said the department has 17 full-time and 13 part-time police service specialist investigators and four full-time and eight part-time police service specialists. All are former police officers, but some have deferred their retirements or resigned from the force without retiring, he said.

Other retired police: A retired police lieutenant now supervises parking checkers. Another former officer returned to a Police Department technology job. Still another is an aldermanic aide.

Other jobs: One employee left as a parking checker, retired as a county worker and came back to Tobin's staff. Another retired as an aldermanic aide, then returned to a similar job. In both cases, their original pensions were less than $11,000 a year, which Barrett said wasn't enough to retire on.

Three other employees retired from the Department of Public Works and came back to similar positions.

In all, 25 of the 32 double-pension employees are former police officers or commanders. Most were retired for more than a year before they returned to the city payroll, but for nine - including Edman and Puente - the break was less than a month.

Had those nine transferred to civilian city jobs, instead of retiring and returning, their pension benefits would have been reduced, Allen said. Recognizing the physical demands and risks of their jobs, Allen said, police and firefighter pensions are superior to other pensions because:

Police can retire after 25 years of service, regardless of their age. Firefighters can retire at 49 with 22 years of service. Other city employees must wait until age 60, or 55 if they have 30 years of service.

Public safety pensions are calculated by multiplying the employees' years of service after 1995 by 2.5% of their highest annual pay. For other city employees, their years of service after 1995 are multiplied by 2% of their average pay in their last three years on the job.

For public safety employees hired before Oct. 3, the city pays the employees' share of pension costs at 7% of their wages. For other employees hired before 2010, the city-paid employee share is 5.5% of salary. In both cases, newer employees must pay their own pension share.

Edman noted that several other former Milwaukee police commanders retired and went on to more lucrative jobs as suburban police chiefs or educators. Under state pension rules, those individuals are allowed to receive their city pensions and earn credit toward state pensions while being paid by their new employers, said Edman and Shawn Smith, spokeswoman for the state Department of Employee Trust Funds.

"Second careers are common, in the public and private sectors," but earning a second pension from the same employer is not, said Allen, who has worked in both corporate and government pension jobs.