I think one piece of information was missed in this story. Pull your head out was exactly right about how retirement is earned. Most city and all state employees earn a retirement based on years of service. The current retirement plan is that officer's retirement is 50 percent at 20 years of service and it increases another 2 percent a year after that to a maximum of 70 percent. This is part of the salary and one of the benefits of a city or state job. I also believe it's one of the reasons that the salaries are a little lower. There's no question it's a good benefit, but it is part of the salary and the officers and other city/state employees pay into the system for their entire career. The point I think was missed is that once a chief draws his retirement, that's it. His retirement doesn't increase and he's certainly not getting anything he doesn't deserve. The chief or sheriff must be of retirement age and have at least 20 years in prior to pulling his retirement. Many chiefs and sheriffs would be retiring anyway at this age and the city would be hiring someone else to do the job. Allowing a chief or sheriff to retire in place keeps the experience in place and really doesn't cost cities or counties an additional cent. Any person who reaches retirement age and decides to retire can do so, and then take another job. It happens in every job in the country and this is no different. The issue is that the retirement system has been hammered by the economic downturn that is affecting us all. Three years ago, Utah's public retirement plan was the envy of the Country. It was "making money" every year and was easily covering all the retirement costs of city and state retirees. When the stock market tanked, so did the retirement investments. I'm not saying that something doesn't need to be done to address this issue because it's obviously not working. I just think we need to look at it rationally and not sensationalize the story by singling out one group of the hundreds of different job titles that all pull retirement out of this account.