BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The former leader of the Louisiana State Police will take home more than $128,000 annually in retirement benefits for life.
Col. Mike Edmonson retired last week after coming under increasing criticism for his leadership of the agency. WWL-TV reports (http://bit.ly/2oaNWgJ ) it got Edmonson’s pension information from the Louisiana State Police Retirement System.
He’ll also get a lump-sum payout for some additional retirement contributions he set aside, but that figure wasn’t released.
Edmonson was paid a $177,000 annual salary before retiring.
His pension payments would have been thousands of dollars larger, under a last-minute retirement provision passed by lawmakers in 2014 that would have benefited Edmonson and one other trooper. After harsh criticism, Edmonson and the trooper said they wouldn’t accept the benefit. A judge later declared the pension hike unconstitutional.