Gov. David Paterson today sent the Legislature a program bill to provide another temporary early retirement incentive for public employees in hopes of reducing the workforce to trim the budget deficit.

As discussed back in April, the measure includes a 25/55 plan that would permit those age 55 or older to retire without penalty after 25 rather than 30 years.

Paterson spokesman Morgan Hook said the bill was sent to the Legislature before the governor announced this morning that he would indeed make good on his pledge to include the state worker furloughs in his next budget extenders that will be released Friday (assuming there is still no deal, which looks likely).

The Paterson administration has been looking to achieve $250 million worth of personnel costs, but Hook said this incentive would likely acheive only $50 million of that, at the most. He noted that the last incentive wasn’t as popular as had been hoped and didn’t generate all of the predicted savings.

“The idea being here is that we want as many avenues as possible to try to achieve savings,” Hook said.

The bill appears in full after the jump. Here’s the accompanying memo.

Gpb _249 Retirement Incentive – Bill

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