Federal government could help pay for early retirement benefits

Fifty-three public and private employers in Wisconsin are in line for federal money to help pay for early retirement benefits. The intent is to preserve eroding retiree health coverage until people are eligible for Medicare, or can use the new health exchange marketplace starting in 2014.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that the percentage of large firms providing workers with retiree health coverage has dropped from 66-percent in 1988 to 29-percent last year.

To shore up coverage, the feds are providing funds to private business, along with state and local governments.

Racine County applied and was accepted for the program. Doug Stansil is the county’s finance director. He says the calculation of what the county might be eligible for is complicated.

“So we are going to be working on this and will be running reports to try and identify what we might be eligible to receive.”

Racine County won’t get full reimbursement; there’s a high and low limit in what the feds will pay and it’s only for expenses after June 1 of this year. But for governments and companies that have lots of early retirees, it can help. Stansil says former employees of Racine County pay anywhere from 5- to 50percent for retirement health benefits. So the employers’ share can add up, depending on who can retire early and how much time they have put in on the job.

Federal officials say applications for early retirement benefit money came from all sectors: schools, business, unions and local governments. This is the first round of applications.

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