In fiscal year 2025, the state of Connecticut reached an all-time high–$2.75 billion–in spending for retired government workers. The data was found on the Connecticut Office of the State Comptroller website, which tracks where tax dollars go, including operating expenses, open expenditures, state payroll, state pensions and tax credits. For comparison, in 2015, the pension average was $34,438 per person.
In 2025, the average pension soared to $44,961 per person. In 2025, 61,179 current and former Connecticut residents received retirement pensions. The highest was more than $400,000 a year. Pensions have been established in Connecticut since 1939 under the State Employees Retirement System (SERS). Pensions are intended to be evergreen, meaning permanent for people receiving payments under retirement until their death. The current SERS agreement, established in 2017, will expire on June 30, 2027.
In Connecticut, 45,658 of pension earners still reside in the state, and approximately 75% of them are retirees. The rest live in other states such as Florida, where close to 6,000 people live; Massachusetts, where more than 2,000 live, and North Carolina and South Carolina. Residents of Connecticut have left the state for retirement seeking states with lower costs of living such as Florida, where the average cost of living is approximately $60,000 a year compared to Connecticut, which is approximately $65,000.
In terms of those pensioners, four are listed as “UNDISCLOSED UNDISCLOSED,” who received more than $200,000 in pensions. The five highest listed are John Veiga, a Board of Trustees member at the University of Connecticut (UConn); Jack Blechner, a former UConn health professor; Edward Blanchette; the former director of clinical services for Connecticut’s Department of Correction; Jeffrey Fisher who is also a Board of Trustees member at UConn and Harry Hartley who served as the 12th president of UConn from 1990 to 1996.
Some think that spending on pensions in the state has gone too far. Ryan J. Wells, the treasurer for the University’s College Republicans chapter, said, “this is a burgeoning welfare state that’s destroying the budget, destroying the affordability which is already a huge problem, and it is going to continue to be a continuing problem and if we don’t confront it at some point, it’s going to kill the state as it has.”
Wells also described what he called a bloated budget in the state and how it will continue to impact future generations with the state also being one of the highest for people moving out as he described.
Conn. Gov. Ned Lamont is also looking to increase the amount of funding that goes toward current state employees. His end goal is $7.3 billion after a gradual 10-year increase. Lamont has also previously proposed buying a stake in the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun team by using pension money to keep the team from moving to Boston.
