Editorial: Double dipping in Henderson

What will it take to implement public-sector pension reform in Nevada?

The issue has festered for decades, with weak-kneed lawmakers preferring a “nothing to see here, move along” approach to substantive action. Thus, all that emerged from the 2015 Legislature was a vow to study the matter further so legislators in 2017 can … approve another study. Repeat ad nauseam.

Meanwhile, private-sector taxpayers remain saddled with funding an unsustainable system offering generous retirement benefits to retired government workers that far exceed what those paying for them can ever hope to see. What worker toiling in the private sector can retire at age 55 and receive a check every year for the rest of his life for up to 75 percent of what he made in his three best years? Not many.

The problem of long-term stability arose again last week, when a report by the Hoover Institution ranked Nevada last in the nation in terms of adequately funding state and local government retirement accounts. Depending on how you calculate it, the state has an unfunded pension liability of between $11 billion and $49 billion.

Then this week the issue of lavish benefits took center stage for one of many encores, as a Henderson judge prepared to double dip to the tune of six figures.

Henderson Justice of Peace Rodney T. Burr has been on the bench for 25 years and earns an annual salary of $184,000. On Tuesday, the City Council voted unanimously to appoint Judge Burr to a Henderson Municipal Court seat vacated by the March death of Judge Diana Hampton. He will earn $144,000 in his new post and must face the voters when the term expires in 2017 if he seeks to retain the seat.

If it seems odd that Judge Burr would welcome a $40,000 pay cut — he actually emailed Henderson Mayor Andy Hafen expressing interest in the vacancy — it isn’t. Thanks to his length of service, Judge Burr will be eligible to collect a $115,000 annual pension even as he cashes Henderson’s paychecks for sitting on the municipal bench.

Judge Burr may indeed be a fine jurist. He regularly received high performance ratings in past Review-Journal’s Judging the Judges surveys.

But this is flat-out ridiculous.

Even Social Security — with payouts that pale by comparison to most public-sector pension plans — imposes benefit reductions on those who draw from the system while still working and earning even modest income. An arrangement that forces taxpayers to foot a six-figure pension for a government worker at the same time that worker earns a six-figure salary screams for reform as the system charges toward the cliff.

And we don’t need another study to reach that conclusion.