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Anthony Russell, 21, sits in the deserted Carousel shopping mall in San Bernardino, Calif., on Sept. 11.

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. -- When this sun-drenched exurb east of Los Angeles filed for bankruptcy protection in August, the city attorney suggested fraudulent accounting was the root of the problem.

The mayor blamed a dysfunctional city council and greedy police and fire unions. The unions blamed the mayor. Even now, there is little agreement on how the city got into this crisis or how it can extricate itself.

"It's total political chaos," said John Husing, a former San Bernardino resident and regional economist. "There is no solution. They'll never fix anything."

Yet on close examination, the city's decades-long journey from prosperous, middle-class community to bankrupt, crime-ridden, foreclosure-blighted basket case is straightforward — and alarmingly similar to the path traveled by many municipalities around America's largest state. San Bernardino succumbed to a vicious circle of self-interests among city workers, local politicians and state pension overseers.

Little by little, over many years, the salaries and retirement benefits of San Bernardino's city workers — and especially its police and firemen — grew richer and richer, even as the city lost its major employers and gradually got poorer and poorer.

Unions poured money into City Council elections, and the City Council poured money into union pay and pensions. The California Public Employees' Retirement System (Calpers), which manages pension plans for San Bernardino and many other cities, encouraged ever-sweeter benefits. Investment bankers sold clever bond deals to pay for them. Meanwhile, state law made it impossible to raise local property taxes and difficult to boost any other kind.

No single deal or decision involving benefits and wages over the years killed the city. But cumulatively, they built a pension-fueled financial time-bomb that finally exploded.

In bankrupt San Bernardino, a third of the city's 210,000 people live below the poverty line, making it the poorest city of its size in California. But a police lieutenant can retire in his 50s and take home $230,000 in one-time payouts on his last day, before settling in with a guaranteed $128,000-a-year pension. Forty-six retired city employees receive over $100,000 a year in pensions.

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Firefighter Captain Tim Smith, 41, puts on his boots to answer a call in San Bernardino, Calif.

Almost 75 percent of the city's general fund is now spent solely on the police and fire departments, according to a Reuters analysis of city bankruptcy documents -- most of that on wages and pension costs.

In the dark
San Bernardino's biggest creditor, by far, is Calpers, the public-employee pension fund. The city says it owes Calpers $143 million; using a different calculation, Calpers says the city would have to pay $320 million if it left the plan immediately.

Second on the city's list of creditors are holders of $46 million worth of pension bonds -- money borrowed in 2005 to pay off Calpers. The total pension-related debts are more than double the $92 million owed to the city's next 18 largest creditors combined.

Complicating matters were obscure budgeting procedures that left residents in the dark. The word "pension" doesn't appear once in the most recent 642-page budget, and retiree costs are buried in detailed departmental line items.

"I've been asking for years for the pension costs," said Tobin Brinker, a former council member and pension-reform advocate, who lost his seat last year to a challenger backed by nearly $100,000 in contributions from the fire and police unions. "I still don't know the number."

James Penman, the longtime city attorney who critics say is closely aligned with the unions, alleged during a council meeting this summer that 13 of the past 16 city budgets had been falsified. He has refused to elaborate on that accusation since, but told Reuters that he hasn't retracted it either.

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James Penman, attorney general of San Bernardino city, talks to the media at the City Council chambers on July 11.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an informal inquiry into the San Bernardino situation because of the city's bond obligations. The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has provided funds to the city in the past, says it is conducting a routine periodic audit of the city's books that began before the bankruptcy.

No regulatory or law-enforcement agency has announced any criminal probe. Recently hired city finance officers do say they have found evidence of terrible accounting and record-keeping.

But unlike in the small Southern California cities of Bell, where eight city officials face trial on allegations that they stole from the public, and Vernon, where three officials have been convicted of corruption, San Bernardino's problems appear to be mainly the result of back-scratching on an epic scale.

It's a pattern common throughout the Golden State  -- and while the particulars are quite different, it is akin to what happened in other states with severe financial crises, such as Illinois and Pennsylvania.

‘2.5 AT 55’
By the time San Bernardino's council met behind closed doors on Sept. 17, 2007, it was already clear the city was in trouble.

Just six months earlier, a report by consulting firm Management Partners showed that spending was outpacing revenue, pension costs were escalating and the city was quickly accumulating unfunded retirement liabilities.

Last decade's housing boom had papered over the deep economic problems stemming from the shutdowns of a huge steel mill in the 1980s and the Norton Air Force Base in the 1990s. Now the boom was over. Tax revenues were poised for a big fall: Between 2007 and 2011, they dropped 30 percent, according to Husing, the regional economist.

Yet on this day in 2007, the city was about to raise pension benefits again, in a deal allowing non-public-safety workers to retire at  55 with a pension equal to three-quarters of their salary. Called "2.5 at 55," it calculated annual pensions at 2.5 percentage points of final salary for each year worked -- 75 percent for 30 years.

It wasn't nearly as good a deal as the one police and firefighters enjoyed - a "3 percent at 50" plan passed a year earlier. That enabled the public-safety workers to retire at 50 with a pension of up to 90 percent of their final salary. Regardless, "2.5 at 55" was what union negotiators had asked for, and the council was poised to rubber-stamp it.

But then something happened. And in a city which has a particularly toxic brand of politics, what transpired depends on who you talk to.

According to four people present at the meeting, Penman, the city attorney, brought a pregnant co-worker to the session. By their account, Penman's co-worker made an emotional case for an even more generous pension deal. Otherwise, she said, she would be forced to leave San Bernardino and seek work in a city with better benefits. She had her family to consider, she said.

Penman vehemently denies that any of this took place. "Welcome to San Bernardino politics," he said.

Runaway train
That afternoon, in public session, the council unanimously voted to award its non-safety workers 2.7 percent at 55 - more even than the union sought. That tiny fraction could raise the pension on a $100,000 salary by $6,000 per year. Penman, in office since 1987, earned $164,799 last year, according to city payroll data.

"In hindsight I am not proud of this vote," said Brinker, who was on the City Council at the time. "The recession hit barely a year later. This was one more log on the pension bonfire."

Meanwhile, San Bernardino continued to boost wages along with benefits. The average salary for a full-time San Bernardino firefighter in 1997 was $75,610, adjusted for inflation into 2010 dollars. By 2010, it was nearly $147,000, according to a Reuters analysis of Census Bureau data.

City wages were a runaway train, according to the Management Partners report. The city charter automatically calculated police and firefighter pay using a formula linked to wages offered by comparably sized cities -- most of which were much wealthier than San Bernardino. Efforts to amend the charter were strongly opposed by the safety unions and voted down by the council earlier this year.

City workers took advantage of compensation rules, common among public employees in California, that made retirement deals even better. Key to this was boosting an employee's eve-of-retirement wages, which form the basis of the pension calculations.

Mike Conrad, chief of the fire department from 2006 to 2012, said he saw managers negotiate a promotion in their final year, to boost their final salary. It was not uncommon for someone to move into a position with a $30,000 annual pay rise shortly before retirement, he said.

Retiring employees are also able to extract big one-time "cash outs." In San Bernardino, eight hours per month of unused sick time can be rolled over and saved year after year, without limit. Come retirement, 50 percent of the total can be taken in cash. The same goes for unused vacation time: up to 460 accrued hours of vacation -- nearly three months of salary -- can be cashed in at the fire department, Conrad said.

The police have a similar deal. In 2009, patrol Lt. Richard Taack retired at the age of 59, after 37 years of service. He took home $389,727 that year, including $194,820 in unused sick time and $33,721 for unused vacation time, according to city payroll records. Shortly after Taack retired -- on an annual lifetime pension of $128,000 -- he was hired part-time by Penman's city attorney's office, at $32 an hour.

Potholes and empty lots
Taack's 2009 income was nearly double that of the city's entire street-sweeping department. In 2011, overtime pay alone for the police department -- $2,766,175 -- exceeded the total payroll of 12 other San Bernardino city departments, according to the Reuters analysis of payroll data. Taack didn't respond to requests for comment.

"I can't begrudge the man for receiving what he's entitled to under the contract," said David Green, the head road sweeper, who has seen his department cut to five people from 13 when he joined in 1995. But he said there should be a better balance between the safety forces and other departments. "Nobody wants to drive a car and have to hit a three-foot pothole."

Indeed, potholes scar downtown San Bernardino. Many stores are shuttered. Abandoned lots sit unkempt. Since the bankruptcy filing, city finance officials have put forward proposals to close libraries, senior centers and a cemetery.

Andrea Travis-Miller, interim city manager, told the council this summer that 250 non-safety positions had been eliminated in the past three years to save money -- and implied that police and fire benefits were crowding out other essential services. "I believe that city buildings, roads, trees and parks that have begun to show neglect would deteriorate further if more cuts are made," Travis-Miller said.

The police and fire unions fiercely dispute the charge that large salaries and pensions are to blame for the predicament. They point to the housing crash, which left the city with the fourth-worst foreclosure rate in the country.

Scott Moss, head of the firefighters union, said 20 positions had already been cut from the Fire Department, leaving about 120 people.

"There's been mismanagement for years," Moss said, over coffee in a local restaurant. He noted that Mayor Patrick Morris had majority support on the City Council for six years until union-backed members regained a majority in March. "The mayor and his people are trying to make us look bad."

Moss, 46, a fire paramedic, said he might retire at 53. Payroll records show a base pay of $94,500, and total 2011 wages, with overtime, of about $147,000. Moss confirmed the base figure but didn't comment on the overtime number.

Sick of the blame
Moss said he is sick of people blaming pensions. "You go to bankruptcy, you got to blame somebody. So they say it's the benefits, it's the overtime -- it's everybody but them," Moss said. "But what have they been doing these last six years?"

On sick-pay cash-outs, Moss said: "If you call in sick, you're a bad employee. So my guys don't call in sick. Then you get all this time you are owed -- and you get vilified."

He added: "This is a dangerous city. It's an old, decayed city. It burns. There are gangs. The pay and benefits attract the police and firefighters it needs. Without them, you lose all the good ones. That's the balance."

Crime and gangs are real dangers in San Bernardino. In 2010, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation data, the rate of known violent crimes -- 8.15 per 1,000 people -- was higher than in any other city in the region.

A five-minute drive from City Hall, on a residential street, sit flowers and homemade signs next to a picture of Angel Cortez. The 22-year-old was shot in the back of the head in May in what police suspect was a "gang-related" murder. His body was found in the backyard of a vacant home. His killers had first tried stuffing his body into a trash can, then returned to dig a hole, before unsuccessfully attempting to burn his body, police said.

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Mayor Patrick J. Morris poses for a photo in San Bernardino, Calif., in July 2012.

Mayor Morris, a 74-year-old former judge who's been in office six years, is scathing about the power he says the unions have over much of the city council. The unions, he said, "wag the dog." (Council members are paid just $50 a month for their service, but also receive a car allowance worth $600 a month).

He rejects Moss's argument that he should take responsibility for the financial crisis. He is particularly critical of his two-time challenger for the mayorship, city attorney Penman, who he said "has blocked all efforts to reform the budget" on behalf of the unions.

Morris added: "I have no vote on the council. I can only veto a vote if it is 4 to 3. All I have is the power of persuasion. I've told them a bunch of times to be far more conservative, not to be so generous with our unions, and it's advice they have largely ignored."

'Mean, divisive, corrosive'
Morris isn't running for re-election when his term expires a year from now. "The politics of this place are and have been for decades mean-spirited, divisive, and it's corrosive to the extreme," he said.

Penman denies being influenced by the unions. He said he takes campaign contributions from the police and firefighters like most other elected officials in California. He said he actually split with the police union in 2007 -- a rupture reported at the time -- and wasn't endorsed by them again until his last re-election bid in 2011. Campaign finance records show that he received $30,000 in contributions from the police and fire unions in 2011.

Of his critics, Penman said: "You are hearing from some people whose ethics and honesty are very much in doubt."

A key facilitator of San Bernardino's generous retirement packages was Calpers, which manages pensions both for state workers and for many city and county employees across California.

Led by a board of directors who are all themselves members of the pension plan, Calpers has for decades pushed to sweeten benefits for retirees.

A 1999 law championed by Calpers, known as SB 400, cut the retirement age five years and increased benefits for state workers, all on the premise that a rising stock market meant benefits could be juiced up at little or no cost. Many cities and counties, though not required to go along, were happy to heed Calpers' analysis. About half -- including San Bernardino — adopted the richer benefit formula.

When the stock market tumbled in 2000, cities and towns suddenly had to ramp up payments to Calpers to make up for the hit to their fund balances, which were heavily invested in shares. Fee-hungry investment bankers stepped into the breach.

Led by the now-defunct Lehman Brothers, they persuaded many cities -- including San Bernardino and Stockton, which is also in bankruptcy -- that the best way to satisfy growing obligations to Calpers was to borrow the money via so-called pension obligation bonds. San Bernardino raised $50 million in 2005 by issuing these notes. Between 1999 and 2009, 26 California cities sold about $1.7 billion of debt to fund their pensions, including bond issues that were used to pay off earlier debt.

'Calpers versus Wall Street’
Yet even in bankruptcy, reducing pension costs by cutting benefits is not an option - at least according to Calpers.

The pension agency says the benefits are carved in stone, arguing that from the day a worker is hired, the pension plan in place on that day for that person can never be reduced in value under any circumstances, including municipal bankruptcy.

That argument has never been tested in court: When the Bay Area city of Vallejo went bankrupt in 2008, it declined to challenge the pension payments to Calpers, in part because of the daunting legal costs involved.

But the pension-bond insurers who are now on the hook for defaulted bonds in both Stockton and San Bernardino have signaled their intention to do battle with Calpers in bankruptcy court. San Bernardino, in an unprecedented move, has already stopped making payments to Calpers.

"Calpers is the 800-pound gorilla in the room," said Michael Sweet, a bankruptcy attorney at Fox Rothschild, which is not representing any parties in the San Bernardino bankruptcy. "No one has yet taken on Calpers. This is going to be a huge fight, and it's going to be Calpers versus Wall Street."

Calpers says it wasn't responsible for the decisions made in San Bernardino. Alan Milligan, chief actuary at Calpers, said the 1999 legislation "provided options to cities and agencies to change their retirement benefits, but it did not encourage or force them" to do so. "Calpers does not give advice about how an agency should pay for their retirement benefits."

Brad Pacheco, a spokesman for Calpers, said San Bernardino lost major employers in recent years and was one of the U.S. cities hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis. He said San Bernardino's annual pension costs account for just 10 percent of the total city budget.

Those figures, however, exclude the city's $46 million in pension-bond debt plus its unfunded debt to Calpers. The city in its bankruptcy filing says it is $143 million in the hole to Calpers. Calpers says that if San Bernardino pulled out of the plan, it would owe $320 million to cover its current and future obligations.

Miserable company
San Bernardino and Stockton are hardly alone. A handful of other small California cities, including Atwater, Hercules and Compton, are teetering near bankruptcy.

Big California cities that run their own pension plans also have deep problems. San Jose, hub of Silicon Valley, and San Diego, biotech center of California, both passed pension reforms in June in the face of unmanageable retirement benefits. they are now defending those measures in court against public-employee lawsuits.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a former labor organizer, led a push to raise the retirement age and cut pensions for new, non-safety city staff. He exempted police and fire employees. A ballot measure sponsored by former Mayor Richard Riordan aims to include them in the cuts, too.

And while California has the biggest pension debt in the United States in dollar terms, it's not the worst off. Illinois and Kentucky plans are battling for the dubious distinction of having the lowest ratio of assets to liabilities, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

The chronic mismanagement in San Bernardino, though, is a common feature of local government in California and around the United States. Much power over municipal finance lies in the hands of those with the most at stake — city employees, elected officials and others who depend directly on government for their livelihood. And California is moving to put even more responsibility and funds, not less, in their hands.

One of Gov. Jerry Brown's marquee initiatives is "realignment," an effort to move more public-safety, welfare and prison services from state control to the cities and counties. Local governments are more flexible and more responsive to local issues, Brown argues, and thus able to make better decisions.

Charles McNeely, who served three years as San Bernardino's city manager after 13 years in the same post in Reno, Nev., quit last March, citing the "toxic" atmosphere on the council. He had warned repeatedly that without change, the city faced ruin. In a presentation to the City Council in August 2010, he said spending was far outpacing revenue and predicted a budget deficit of $40 million for this fiscal year.

"I don't know how you could come out of that meeting not understanding we had a serious problem," McNeely said in an interview. "I told them, 'You're headed for trouble, it's a train wreck. You can't keep doing business this way.'"

Additional reporting by Peter Henderson and Jim Christie in San Francisco.

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New Jersey Governor's Office

N.J. Gov. Chris Christie with Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno in November 2011. Despite Guadagno's involvement in a criminal investigation of pension abuse, Christie has not appointed a special prosecutor.

By Mark Lagerkvist
New Jersey Watchdog

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — a rising star in the national Republican Party — called an overhaul of the state pension system his "biggest governmental victory." He now faces embarrassment from flaws his reforms failed to fix.

The sweeping new laws increase contributions from public workers, decrease benefits and halt cost-of-living hikes. According to Christie, the changes should save the state $120 billion over the next 30 years.

But his reform did little to stop the age-old New Jersey practice of double-dipping, in which employees "retire," start collecting a pension, and then are rehired, often the next day. Christie's own deputy chief of staff collects $219,000 a year from the state — a $130,000 salary as a top aide to the governor plus $89,000 in state pension.

Worse for Christie, a criminal investigation is under way involving his running mate, New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno.

As a county sheriff in 2008, Guadagno made false statements to enable her chief officer to pocket nearly $85,000 a year in retirement pay while drawing an $87,500 annual salary. The double-dipping scheme first was reported by New Jersey Watchdog in 2010.

The state's investigation is assigned to the Attorney's General's Division of Criminal Justice, a unit where Guadagno once served as deputy director. Despite the apparent conflict, Christie has not appointed a special prosecutor.

A spokesman for Christie and Guadagno declined to comment. The Attorney General's Office did not respond to questions.

Pension abuses are so rampant in New Jersey that even the agency investigating Guadagno has its own controversy.

Twenty-three supervisors and investigators for the Attorney General’s Office and DCJ are using legal loopholes to draw salaries and pension pay, New Jersey Watchdog found. On average, each pockets $164,000 a year — $96,000 in salary and $68,000 in pension.

Most "retired" for just one night. Those officers left their positions with the Attorney General’s Office only to return to the same employer the next morning with new job titles — and two paychecks instead of one.

In a continuing series of investigative reports, New Jersey Watchdog exposed similar double-dipping practices involving 125 officers employed by prosecutors, 18 officials from a state Homeland Security Unit and 44 county sheriffs and undersheriffs — in addition to the Guadagno story.

Democratic State Sen. Fred Madden is a "triple-dipper" who collects more than $241,000 a year from public coffers — $49,000 as a legislator, $106,983 as a police academy dean and an $85,272 pension as a State Police retiree.

"I don't have a problem with it at all," said Madden.

The Guadagno controversy
While Madden and others profit from loopholes in pension rules, the circumstances surrounding Christie's second-in-command raise questions of fraud and deception. 

Guadagno was elected sheriff of Monmouth County in 2007. She previously worked as an assistant U.S. attorney and as an assistant New Jersey attorney general. From 1998 to 2001, Guadagno served as deputy director of the DCJ — the unit now assigned to investigate the case in which she's a major figure.

In 2008, Guadagno hired Michael Donovan Jr., a retired investigator for the county prosecutor, as the sheriff’s “chief of law enforcement division.” She announced the appointment in a memo to her staff.

Monmouth County Sheriff's Office

The focus of a criminal investigation of pension abuse, Chief Michael Donovan takes an oath of office in the Monmouth County, N.J., Sheriff's Office on Sept. 22, 2008. Donovan's job title was fudged to allow him to collect his pension and his pay at the same time. The swearing in was witnessed by his mother, Emily, and then-Sheriff Kim Guadagno, now the state's lieutenant governor. Donovan was sworn in by Judge Lawrence M. Lawson.

But there was a problem. As a sheriff's chief officer — a position covered by the pension system — Donovan would be required to stop receiving pension checks and resume contributions to the state retirement fund.

Guadagno fudged the job title, so Donovan could double-dip. In county payroll records, the oath of office and a news release, Donovan was called the sheriff's "chief warrant officer" — a low-ranking position exempt from the pension system.

A chief warrant officer oversees the service of warrants and other legal documents. In contrast, the sheriff's official website identified Donovan as "sheriff's officer chief," supervising 115 subordinate officers and 30 civilian employees.

On Guadagno’s organizational chart, Donovan was listed as chief of law enforcement — and the position of chief warrant officer was conspicuously absent.

The ruse allowed Donovan to collect an $87,500 salary from Monmouth County in addition to an $85,000 pension as a retired county employee.

A Conflicted Investigation
When Guadagno was elected as Christie's running mate in the 2009 election, she resigned as sheriff.

In 2010, state Treasury pension officials began to ask Monmouth County about retiree Donovan's employment. "I would respectfully request that former Sheriff Guadagno be contacted..." replied her successor, Shaun Golden, in a letter forwarded to the Treasury.

The Treasury denied the existence of any correspondence or email contact with Guadagno or Christie regarding Donovan. Officials also rejected requests for records of the Treasury's inquiry.

In response, New Jersey Watchdog filed a formal complaint with the state Government Records Council, a body consisting of gubernatorial appointees and cabinet officials. One year later, the council has yet to render an advisory opinion.

Meanwhile, the state Police and Firemen's Retirement System's Board of Trustees took action of its own.

"It's a double-whammy," said PFRS chairman John Sierchio. "If you're going to retire under one job title and come back under another title, we have a problem with that. The chief of sheriff is a covered title under the pension system — and they should be contributing instead of drawing out."

The PFRS board voted in May 2011 to call for a criminal investigation of Donovan and parallel instances involving John Dough, of Essex County, and Harold Gibson, of Union County. The case was referred to DCJ.

However, the investigation is riddled with a maze of potential conflicts of interest:

• DCJ is probing allegations involving its own former deputy director, Guadagno.
• Nearly two dozen DCJ investigators and supervisors are "double-dippers" who collect state paychecks and pensions.
• Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa, a Christie appointee, is ultimately in charge of the probe of fellow cabinet member Guadagno. Chiesa is also former chief counsel to Christie.
• Despite evidence of possible wrongdoing by his lieutenant governor, Christie has not appointed a special prosecutor or authorized an independent investigation.

One year later, the PFRS board remains in the dark. "I keep asking, but we haven't been told anything," said Sierchio.

New Jersey Governor's Office

Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno of New Jersey. When she was a county sheriff, her office fudged a job description and organizational charts to allow an aide to double-dip on his pension. Guadagno has declined to comment.

Sean Conner, a spokesman for Christie and Guadagno, refused to listen to questions about Guadagno's role or the need for a special prosecutor.

"Let me stop you right there," Conner told New Jersey Watchdog. "If it was referred to DCJ, you need to call DCJ."

The Attorney General's Office did not respond to questions about the investigation.

Back in Monmouth County, Donovan has another new job title — but he’s still a double-dipper. In February 2011, Golden named him undersheriff in charge of law enforcement — a strikingly similar position, but one apparently exempt in the labyrinth of pension rules. Donovan currently gets an $86,000 annual pension on top of his $92,000 salary.

While sheriff's chief, Donovan pocketed $227,000 in retirement checks. Since he did not re-enroll in the pension system, he avoided $18,000 in contributions to the retirement fund. If state authorities ultimately determine Donovan violated pension rules, he could be forced to repay $245,000.

Reform...except for double-dipping
Pension fraud and widespread abuse are nothing new in New Jersey.

The federal Securities and Exchange Commission accused New Jersey of pension fraud in 2010. It was the first time the SEC had taken action against a state government over public pension funds.

According to the SEC, New Jersey misled its bond investors from 2001 to 2007 by failing to disclose it had not met its obligation to fund public workers' pension funds. The lawsuit was settled with a cease-and-desist order, which the state accepted without admitting or denying the charges. The alleged fraud occurred on the watch of four previous governors.

Christie vowed to overhaul the pension system. With the state facing a $45 billion pension shortfall when he took office, the new governor spearheaded legislation that he signed into law last year.

"We are putting the people first and daring to touch the third rail of politics to bring reform to unsustainable system," stated Christie in a news release. “We are once again showing the people of New Jersey that our state is leading the way on the biggest challenges before us and remains unafraid to do what is hard, but necessary."

But the reforms did little to halt widespread double-dipping by numerous public employees, including Christie's deputy chief of staff.

Louis Goetting gets $219,000 a year from the state — $130,000 in salary as a top aide to the governor plus $89,000 in state pension payments from an early retirement deal. Christie hired Goetting in 2010 as a budget guru to help trim the cost of government.

In addition, Goetting (pronounced “getting”) received two golden parachutes from public coffers before joining Christie — severance packages of $190,000 from Brookdale Community College in 2009 and $180,000 from University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in 2002.

New Jersey Governor's Office

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey has touted his pension reforms, which have done little to halt the practice of double-dipping by public employees, including his deputy chief of staff.

The bottom line: Goetting has gotten more than $1.1 million in pension and severance pay — and he still draws a six-figure salary from the state.

In answer to questions about Goetting's double-dips, the governor's press office has reiterated a statement Christie issued last year: "There is no one in my administration, myself included, who understands about the operation of this government better than Lou Goetting does. And so the people of New Jersey have gotten an incredible bargain.”

Pension reforms will not be complete without an investigative staff to monitor potential abuses, according to PFRS chairman Sierchio. He noted there are 275,000 retirees — but no investigators assigned to review complaints.

"We don't have anybody watching the store," said Sierchio. "We've got an $80 billion pension system, and nobody to investigate anything. Once you get your pension, you never have to look over your shoulder."

New Jersey Watchdog is a news website devoted to public service journalism. Read more about veteran investigative reporter Mark Lagerkvist.