In many states in the US double dipping is allowed. You can check if your state allows it by going the web site of the Department of Insurance of your state. For example Florida currently has laws that allow double dipping by the state employees. The state employees can retire and draw retirement benefits and allows them to return to work in 30 days.
A new bill passed by the state legislation would put an end to this. The Bill 479 would affect more than 9000 officials including the elected officials. The new law would stop them from collecting retirement benefits and a salary simultaneously, amounting to double dipping. This bill was passed to achieve the purpose of ending the practice of double dipping in Florida and also to be accountable to the taxpaying people.
The new legislation would require the retirees to stay in retirement for at least 6 months or they would forfeit their pension. If the person returns to work in the state offices his or her pension would be suspended for a whole year following the date of retirement. This rule is applicable to all state government offices and to about 900 cities and counties including all the public universities and colleges.
This bill has come after previous efforts at banning all the public employees from drawing state pensions along with their salaries from their jobs. Now double dippers would be stopped in future from this practice causing loss to the state. However this bill would not affect those retirees who are double dipping as of now because the lawmakers say that they cannot legally change the current terms of pensions. Those who expect to retire after 31st of December 2009 would be prevented from double dipping.
When retired employees go back to jobs, they can only draw salaries for their current jobs and the state will not be required to contribute towards their pension. This rule is applicable to some jobs and this step results in savings to the state as there are no two payments for the same person.
The practice of double dipping has been in practice with the agency heads in the states Finance, Administration, Police and prisons to cite a few. This step has come at a time when all the states are hit by recession and every effort is being made to plug loopholes to prevent loss of state funds.