As you can see the retirement amounts continue to go up each of the five-year increments.  That is because we continue to earn more and more money and some of the pension benefits also increased. You can see that the average pension from 2000 - 2004 is over 4,347 a month and 52,000 a year.

Joe Valenzuela is the longest retired public safety employee in the state of Arizona.  His original pension was $202.48.  So the COLA has been good to Joe. 

The above numbers do not count the 300 or so officers in DROP, and it is also missing the officers that have retired over the years on disability retirements.  DROP is a new program implemented in 2000 that allows a police officer or firefighter to enter DROP as a payment option.  This allows your retirement amount to be determined and it begins to be paid into a trust fund while the employee continues to work for up to 60 more months.  It is a legal way to accumulate wealth in a short period of time that is tax deferred until you begin taking the money out of the fund.

The lowest paid public safety employee in the state is from the Santa Cruz County Sheriffs office.  This individual went out at $798.02 a month in 2002.  And there are a bunch of folks, many recent retirees from around the state, that are lower paid than the lowest PPD retire.