Ex-lawmaker nearly doubles his pension with one month of work

The Chicago Tribune reports:

All it took for former state Rep. Robert Molaro to nearly double his public pension was spending one month as an aide to Ald. Ed Burke, the powerful chairman of the Chicago City Council's Finance Committee.

Among Molaro's duties: Write a 19-page white paper about Chicago's ailing pension funds. For his services, the former lawmaker was paid $12,000.

That paycheck sent his pension soaring, as many lawmakers' benefits are based on 85 percent of their final pay on the last day of service. When Molaro officially retired on Jan. 1, 2009, his pensionable salary would be calculated at $144,000 — the amount he would have earned had he worked for Burke for a full year.

Just one month earlier, on Dec. 4, 2008, Molaro had resigned from the state Legislature after serving about 15 years in the House and the Senate, making him eligible to receive a pension of about $64,000 based on his roughly $75,000 salary. But he didn't file for his benefits right away.

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