By KRWG News
New Mexico – A House committee has endorsed a bill to allow retired public employees to return to work in a government job and earn up to $15,000 without losing their pensions.
Supporters say the measure will ease problems created by a 2010 law and help local governments hire retires as election workers and for other temporary or part-time jobs.
The Labor and Human Resources Committee approved the bill Thursday and sent it to another House panel for consideration.
A law enacted last year stopped so-called double-dipping for state and local government employees who retired after July 1, 2010. The law required a retiree in the Public Employee Retirement Association pension program to wait a year before returning to a governmental job, and their pension would be suspended until they left the job.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.