What you aren't understanding is that the pension Cawood and most other county employees have is not a defined benefits pension. The County pensions are more like IRAs. The employee contributes a certain amount of his paycheck to the fund, the county matches that amount up to a certain point, and the money is invested in a variety of mutual funds at the discretion of the employee.

Since an employee may be conservative or aggressive with his or her investment strategy, there's no way to say "what amount the emplyee will receive in pension" because it continues to accrue interest and growth as long as it's in the program. Another County Commissioner with the same term of service as Cawood might have a completely different sum in his pension based on how he invested it during his career. And unlike a defined benefits pension, where you can say by rule that an employee withn X years of service will draw X dollars per year, a person in a defined contributions plan that is eligible for a distribution can leave it there till he dies if he has other means, take out an amount of his choosing per month, or remove the whole shebang the day he is eligible to do so.

The new Sheriff's department pension that was approved by the voters last year IS a defined benefits pension, so it is possible to look at the rules of the pension and say that officer X with 20 years service will be eligible to receive $X0,000 per year.

So really, your criticism is unfair. All the pension board could tell you is what Cawood has in his account, and frankly IMO that's really none of your business. I would say this - since the contribution is based on employee pay (I think the max matched contribution allowed under the plan is 6%), 20 years of a Commission salary will not result in a very big nest egg for Mr. Cawood unless he has been extraordinarily fortunate in his investments.

you are missing in this issue in your words "his money" is really OUR money. He never really had the money. It was the taxpayers money for him to do a job.

If he invested our money agressively and made more with our money o.k. if he didn't and lost our money o.k. But it is a need to know item.

The Cawood's have held a gun to the heads of every Knox County taxpayer and have committed armed robbery.

Sorry, but you're just wrong here. Sure, what a politician does with public funds is everyone's business - how they spend money on parks, education, roads, war - all are of public concern. But what they get paid is THEIR money once it is paid, and is no longer a matter for public inquiry. You may know that the County will pay up to 6% of a Commissioner's salary into a pension plan (assuming the commissioners elects to have the full 6% witheld), and so based on the Commissioner's salary you can calculate how much public money is going to the Commissioner, but after that the money belongs to HIM or HER and its really none of your business how much they have accumulated or how they have invested it, any more than it's your business how much they spend on groceries with their paycheck each month.

Unless of course on that theory you want to say that the bank accounts of anyone who gets public assistance, Social Security, government-backed student loans and the like become public records as well?

it is the same flim-flam scam that George Bush wanted to pull with Social Security. And it is STILL a bad idea.

"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"

"I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali