PUBLIC PENSIONS ADD TO SENATORS' SALARIES
By Vineeta Anand
WASHINGTON - A number of U.S. senators are supplementing their $133,600 salaries by drawing public pensions, according to their annual financial records filed earlier this month.
Several others report pensions from the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association-College Retirement Equities Fund and also have substantial assets in individual retirement accounts, Keogh and profit-sharing plans. And one, Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., a former basketball player, collected a $9,878 pension last year from the National Basketball Association Players Association. Mr. Bradley also reported TIAA-CREF retirement assets of between $100,000 and $250,000.
Two senators, Minority Leader Robert Dole, R-Kan., and Robert J. Kerrey, D-Neb., receive military pensions. Mr. Dole earns an Army pension of $17,700 a year, and also has an IRA worth between $50,000 and $100,000. Mr. Kerrey took home a Navy pension of less than $21,696 last year.
In addition, senators stand to collect generous congressional pensions when they retire, typically more than $1 million for senior members over their expected lifetimes, according to estimates by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, a Washington-based non-profit research organization. Michigan Democrat Donald W. Riegle Jr., outgoing chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee who is retiring in January, had accumulated $77,335 from the Senate Retirement Fund by the end of last year.
Topping the list of senators collecting pension benefits from public funds are newcomer Carol Moseley Braun, D-Ill., and Christopher S. Bond, R-Mo. Last year Ms. Moseley-Braun took home pensions of between $15,000 and $50,000 each from the defined contribution plans of the Illinois State Assembly Retirement System and the Cook County (Ill.) Employees Annuity Fund. She also has an IRA with less than $50,000 in assets.
Mr. Bond also declared assets of $50,000 to $100,000 in a state deferred compensation plan, and state retirement benefits of less than $1,000, as well as IRAs, Keoghs and annuities worth as much as $400,000.
Others senators also collect sizable public pensions.
Slade Gorton, R-Wash., disclosed a pension of $16,463.82 from the state as 10-year member of the Washington House and 12 years as state attorney general.
Sen. Mark O. Hatfield, R-Ore., reported $15,372 in civil service retirement benefits, including a $264 pension from the Oregon Public Employes' Retirement System, and $15,108 from the U.S. Department of Treasury.
And Sens. Charles S. Robb, Democratic nomineee for the Virginia gubernatorial race in November, Paul S. Sarbanes, D-Md., and freshman Patty L. Murray, D-Wash., declared assets of less than $15,000 from their state retirement systems last year.
Ms. Murray also declared various IRA and 401(k) plans, and income of less than $15,000 from a profit-sharing plan of her husband.
South Carolina Republican Strom Thurmond collected $12,717.96 in retirement benefits from the state last year. At the same time, freshman Sen. Daniel K. Akaka, D-Hawaii, noted assets worth less than $112,000 in IRAs, and in the TIAA-CREF. He also listed $10,985 from the Hawaii Employees Retirement System among his assets for 1993. The ranking Democrat from the state, Daniel K. Inouye, collected a paltry $998.08 pension from the state employees system in 1993.
A number of senators received paltry civil service retirement incomes - Sen. J. James Exon, D-Neb., for example, last year took home only $2,603.40 in retirement pay as former Nebraska governor, which amounts to $216.95 a month under the State of Nebraska Retirement Plan. Sen. Wendell H. Ford, D-Ky., took home $4,461 in benefits from the Kentucky Retirement Systems. Sen. Robert W. Packwood, R-Ore., collected a $543.01 pension from the Oregon Public Employes' Retirement System last year.
The powerful head of the Senate Finance Committee, Daniel P. Moynihan, D-N.Y., a former college professor, made contributions to TIAA-CREF which, with interest, accumulated to $154,0336 as of August 1989, and has been collecting a monthly pension of $1,094 from it.
Senior Republican Phil Gramm of Texas and his wife, Wendy, former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, disclosed joint income from a number of retirement accounts, including assets valued at somewhere less than $350,000 from two TIAA-CREF teaching retirement annuities, and less than $115,000 from three IRA accounts.
Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, has 21 separate IRA and Keogh accounts with assets somewhere less than $393,000, while South Carolina Sen. Ernest F. Hollings has IRA assets for himself and his wife valued at less than under $250,000.
The shortest financial disclosure was filed by Robert C. Byrd, the influential Democrat from West Virginia, who declared only an IRA with assets valued at less than $50,000 for himself and another for his wife amounting to less than $15,000.