State workers making six figures, in retirement

By Don Michak, Journal Inquirer, Published: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 9:09 AM EDT

 

Nearly 200 retired state employees or their spouses are receiving, or are about to begin receiving, annual pensions of more than $100,000 — including two former University of Connecticut professors and the wife of a third who are paid benefits of more than $200,000, state records show.

The latest list kept by the state comptroller’s officer shows that three-fifths of the 178 people who get six-figure pensions are retired teachers and administrators at state colleges and universities. They include 60 retired educators at the University of Connecticut and 26 retired physicians and other employees at the UConn Health Center in Farmington.

At the top of the list is John F. Veiga of Coventry, a former board of trustees distinguished professor in UConn’s business school who held the Northeast Utilities chair in business ethics.

Veiga retired after 44 years of state service on July 1 at an average salary of $361,293, making him eligible for an annual pension of $317,928. But Viega instead elected to receive a pension of $261,120 — in monthly payments of $21,760 — under an option that allows his spouse to receive 100 percent of those benefits upon his death.

The second-largest state pension goes to the former chairman of the UConn health center’s department of obstetrics and gynecology, Jack N. Blechner of West Hartford, who retired in 1997.

Blechner worked for the state for 35 years and five months and collects $243,648. Under the “spouse option” selected by Blechner, his wife is entitled to collect half of that amount upon his death.

The third person to collect more than $200,000 is Eleanor C. Henken of East Hartford, the spouse of Ernest Markin Henken, a radiologist and teaching professor who retired in 1994 after 41 years and eight months at the health center. She collects $216,125 annually.

The seven retirees rounding out the comptroller’s top 10 roster are:

• The former president of Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Richard L. Judd, who gets $191,064.

• The former president of UConn, Harry J. Hartley, who gets $188,688.

• The former dean of the UConn medical school, Eugene Sigman, who gets $184,247.

• The former director of the UConn health center’s neonatal intensive care unit, John R. Raye, who gets $183,975.

• A former UConn accounting professor, Anthony T. Debenedetto, who gets $183,563.

• The former president of the UConn Health System, Leslie S. Cutler, who gets $181,884.

• The wife of the former president of the former Newington Children’s Hospital, Lynne Menichetti, who gets $175,304.

Other notables with hefty retirement benefits include the former president and executive director of the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, Gary E. King, who gets $133,455; a former state auditor, Leo V. Donohue, who gets $125,880; and former Department of Public Safety Commissioner Lester J. Forst, who gets $117,850.

Also on the list are former Department of Administrative Services Commissioner Barbara A. Waters, who gets $112,058; former Office of Budget and Management director and president of the Connecticut State University System William J. Cibes Jr., who gets $109,950; and former state Department of Education Commissioner Theodore S. Sergi, who gets $106,500.

While a recent Providence Journal report revealed that all but one of the top-paying pensions in neighboring Rhode Island go to retired judges, the Connecticut comptroller’s list shows that just one judge and two other Judicial Department employees retired with six-figure pensions.

The former Superior Court judge is Terence A. Sullivan, who gets $103,907. Alice R. Masterson, who headed the court-reporting operation for the Ansonia-Milford Judicial District, gets $111,306, and Terry S. Capshaw, who was director of adult probation, gets $100,916.

The comptroller’s records show no former lawmakers to be receiving more than $100,000, with only three former General Assembly employees on the top benefits list. They are Robert D. Harris Jr., a former director of the Office of Fiscal Analysis, who gets $103,491; Edwin J. Maley Jr., a former legislative commissioner, who gets $102,472, and Lawrence K. Furbish, a former director of the Office of Legislative Research, who gets $102,097.

More than 200 Connecticut public college teachers took the state’s early retirement offer at the end of last month, and the comptroller’s updated list includes not only the UConn contingent, but also 26 retirees from other state schools, including nine at Southern Connecticut State and four at Central Connecticut State.

It also includes four more retirees from the Department of Public Safety, four more from the state auditors’ office, and two more from the Department of Administrative Services.

Six others on the list are retired from the Department of Transportation, five from the Department of Correction, five from the State Agricultural Experiment Station, five from the state Mental Health Commission, five from the attorney general’s office, and four from Norwalk Hospital and the Newington Children’s Hospital.