20 government workers with super-sized pay

The blog Red Tape Chronicles has accumulated, through the help of its readers, a list of 20 state and local government workers with egregious salaries and pensions, in many cases double dippers. The article is an interesting condemnation of public employees receiving excessive incomes while the taxpayers are struggling to keep their heads above water.

The blog gives websites where you can do some investigations on you own local situation. Read all about the top 20 on the list here..

Excerpt: State and local government budgets are by all accounts in dire straits. Last year, collectively, they faced a $100 billion budget shortfall. After 12 months of belt tightening, emergency aid, layoffs and tax hikes, things are even worse. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said in a report this year that the gap could be $140 billion. And last week, respected analyst Meredith Whitney suggested that state governments will collapse unless the federal government offers a trillion-dollar bailout that will rival the bank bailout of 2008.

And yet, across America, many government workers are getting rich off taxpayer-funded salaries. City managers get free luxury cars, firefighters get half-million-dollar lump payments and, in California, one city worker is being paid $500,000 annually during retirement. In New York state, $100,000 salaries can’t be called rich, but at a time when unemployment remains near 10 percent, there are 99,000 state and local workers bringing home six figure salaries.

Two weeks ago we published a survey of government workers with super-sized salaries and invited Red Tape Chronicles readers to do some digging. You weren’t shy. More than 1,000 tips came streaming in via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and this blog, and we researched each one. Here are the best – or worst -- examples you sent.