House Speaker says early retirement returnees weren’t intended

Iowa House Speaker Brent Siegrist says the early-retirement option aimed at cutting state payrolls wasn’t meant to allow workers to return to work after getting retirement benefits. A Des Moines Register report says as many as 44 state workers who retired, returned to work as “consultants.” Agency heads say they need the expertise of former key employees to train replacements. Siegrist says that defeats the purpose of the plan. He says the purpose of the early-retirement program was to avoid layoffs, but front-line workers will still be fired if people who retire early then return to fill state jobs. Siegrist says earlier this year, in the regular session, legislative leaders thought they’d passed legislation that would prevent the double dipping of workers who return to claim paychecks after taking retirement.He wants to know how so many people can claim retirement benefits and still get paid their normal salary as consultants. The state’s confirmed a number of employees now classified as temporary or contracted workers claimed as much as two-point-four million dollars in early-retirement benefits and have drawn nearly half a million in pay since retiring.