FWIW, in NYS, the law makes it hard for civil servants to return back to work while collecting their pensions. So coincidentally, many end up just leaving the state to stretch their dollars in places like Florida.

OTOH, increasing the co-pays is *definitely* what happened. Tier IV employees pay 2% (my dad once upon a time). New employees (my brother) pay 4.5% and overtime no longer factors as much in pension payouts. So even if you *could* retire at 55, the payouts are too little which creates an incentive to stay longer. And if you had kids at 30, paying for their grad school means that you're *definitely* going to stay longer to help them out financially with the overtime that doesn't accrue toward your pension...