There is a widespread perception that state employees are better paid and have better benefits than workers in the private sector.

Certainly, if one were to look at one raw and simple number - the total compensation package received by the average state worker compared with that of the average private sector employee - there would seem to be a vast disparity between the two.

The average state employee's annual compensation, including salary and benefits, is $105,498, compared with $74,174 for the average worker in the private sector, according to a December report produced by the state Commission on Enhancing Agency Outcomes, a task force formed under the former administration to streamline state government.

The problem with that approach is that the average state worker is a different animal than the average private sector worker.

The state government has a disproportionate number of doctors, nurses, professors, teachers, computer technicians and lawyers who are older and better educated than the average private sector worker.

"Unfortunately the commission did not do the best of work on this issue," said William J. Cibes Jr., the former secretary of the state Office of Policy and Management under Gov. Lowell P. Weicker and a member of the commission.

"When you control for age and education, public sector employees are older and much more well educated," Cibes said.

About 33 percent of Connecticut's state employees have an advanced degree beyond college, compared with 13.4 percent in the private sector, according to the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts. And their median age is 44, versus 41 in the private sector.

Other studies confirm this. A report released last month by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington showed that nationwide the vast majority of state employees are teachers, professors, health professionals and police and firefighters. That translates into higher salaries and benefits.

When one looks at the issue job by job, it becomes clear that those on the lower end of the scale earn more working for the state than they would in the private sector, and those on the upper end earn less working for the state.

So, for example, the median pay for an office clerk working for the state is $42,254 compared with $29,904 for a clerk working in the private sector. On the other hand, a professor of computer science earns $62,620 working for the state, while his or her counterpart in a private school has an annual salary of $86,521, according to the state Office of Legislative Research.

"Public employee compensation is not grossly out of line with the private sector," Cibes said, "and at the high end of the scale, the public sector is lower than the private sector."

In Connecticut, those at the bottom of the ladder earn about 3.8 percent more than their counterparts in the private sector, while those at the top earn about 5.5 percent less, according to the Political Economy Research Institute at UMass.

Public employees made 'villains'

The OPM secretary, who has overseen construction of the budget for Gov. Dannel P. Malloy that seeks $1 billion a year in concessions from state employees, agrees with Cibes.

"It's a much different mix than the overall workforce. We have a lot of teachers, college professors and voc-ed teachers, and they are being paid on master's degrees and doctorates. ... When you look at many of the case workers at the state Department of Children and Families, they are going to have college degrees or some level of higher education," said Benjamin Barnes, Malloy's budget chief.

"So I'm kind of reluctant to accept an overall statement, especially within the context of what's going on in Wisconsin and Ohio," he said.

Union leaders agree.

"I think that we're in a dangerous debate right now in which public employees have been made villains for the economic downturn," said Larry Dorman, spokesman for the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC), which is negotiating with the governor's budget people. "And I think that's neither truthful nor helpful to get the economy moving again. It's a dangerous path when you attack one group of workers because they have decent health care, pensions and family-supporting jobs."

Instead, the unions think the state should raise the taxes on the wealthy.

"Middle-class workers spend money on Main Street," Dorman said. "Hedge fund managers spend it overseas."

The state is required to make payments exceeding $5.4 billion a year to compensate state employees and retirees, a figure that represents about 25 percent of the state's general fund budget. A billion dollar cut would represent nearly 20 percent of that.

But when Malloy conducted one of his "town meetings" at New London's Jennings School Wednesday, he reiterated that, from his point of view, there is no alternative.

"I've made it very clear that we have to get to this agreement. Otherwise, our options are to lay off thousands and thousands of people and to gut the safety net. That's what we're looking at. Because I've made it very clear: We cannot raise taxes $3.3 billion, nor can we cut $3.3 billion out of this budget as it currently exists."

Some possible cuts

Neither Malloy nor Barnes, however, would discuss specifics, as the state Office of Labor Relations began talking with union representatives Wednesday. Both sides have agreed not to discuss the content of those talks with the media.

But a look at some of the benefits that accrue to state workers, and a report completed by the state Post-Employment Benefits Commission in October, suggest some directions the state might go.

For example, the average state employee contributes 11 percent of the cost of his or her health insurance, compared with the 21 percent contributed by the average private employee. Malloy has suggested changing state employees' health benefits package for an estimated $100 million in savings.

Comparing retirement benefits is more complicated, as the state employee pension system consists of three "tiers," with different contributions and benefits, depending on when the worker started working for the state. The first tier provides the most generous benefits; the second two provide less and require a larger contribution from the employee.

About 14,000 state employees make no contributions to their pension plans, according to the benefits commission. Another 18,315 make a 2 percent contribution.

If employees contributed an additional 1 percent toward their retirement, it would total about $32 million. Also, the state could save another $135 million by raising the retirement age - currently 55, 60 or 62, depending on when one began working for the state.

State retirees also receive a minimum of a 2.5 percent cost-of-living adjustment to their total salaries each year, and, depending on the Consumer Price Index, can receive as much as 6 percent, a perk unknown to many in the private sector.

Pensions are calculated on the employee's "final average salary," which is the person's three highest-paid years, and several panels have warned that this policy encourages "spiking," in which employees work a lot of overtime in their last three years to drive up that figure.

"That's an area that really needs to be controlled," Cibes said. "I think it's also reasonable to lengthen the period to a five-year average instead of three-year average."

Also, retiring state employees can "cash out" up to 120 unused vacation days and up to 60 unused sick days, another benefit not common in the private sector.

Another benefit state employees receive that their brethren in the private sector don't: longevity payments. Both managers and union members get them and, in 2009, about 35,000 managers and employees received them.

For union employees these are flat amounts, paid twice a year, for long-term employees depending on their length of service.

The typical range of payments is from $75 to $499 twice a year for workers with 10 to 14 years of service.

The amounts go up for 15 to 19 years of service, 20 to 25 years of service and for more than 25 years of service, at which point the payments range from $300 to $1,938 twice a year.

The total cost of longevity payments to state employees is about $36.6 million a year, according to the benefits commission.

Malloy has suggested a couple of other possibilities: Impose a two-year wage freeze to save nearly $300 million, and require state employees to take furloughs, saving $80 million.

"We're looking at everything," Barnes said. "All parts of compensation we're taking a look at."

k.robinson@theday.com

Up and down

How does the compensation of state employees compare to employees in the private sector? A lot depends on the job. Persons in jobs requiring less education tend to do better working for the state; persons with advanced training and degrees do worse. Here are some examples.

Job

Private sector

State

RNs

$ 70,623

$ 70,263

Nurse's aides

$ 30,191

$ 45,249

Home care aides

$ 20,007

$ 39,773

LPNs & LVNs

$ 53,059

$ 55,002

Physicians

$ 154,307

$ 157,911

Executive secretaries

$ 45,905

$ 59,127

Legal secretaries

$ 47,699

$ 37,191

Other secretaries

$ 33,616

$ 51,338

Office clerks

$ 29,904

$ 42,254

Typists/Word processors

$ 33,433

$ 35,231

Lawyers

$116,203

$111,076

Math professors

$ 71,485

$ 63,564

English professors

$ 79,570

$ 63,290

Computer science professors

$ 86,521

$ 62,620

Note: When it comes to the state's top jobs, commissioners make a lot less than CEOs in the private sector. So, for example, the state's social services commissioner, who heads up a multibillion dollar agency, earns $166,980 a year, compared to, say, the CEO of Cigna, who takes in $6,593,921 a year.

Sources: The state Office of Legislative Research, the state Department of Labor and company Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

How much do they make?

Want to take an agency-by-agency or even an employee-by-employee look at the salaries or pensions of state employees? Here's a link, courtesy of The Yankee Institute for Public Policy, a nonprofit organization dedicated to public access to public information:

www.ctsunlight.org/Home/tabid/38/Default.aspx