Dow Jones Newswires, September 1, 2009 — Pensions in states including Ohio, Nevada, Kentucky and New Mexico are considering or have already instituted new rules for public employees’ retirement plans, and more are expected.

For police, firefighter and teachers, it’s in residents’ best interests to reduce employee turnover through traditional pensions, say Aon actuary William Fornia.

The money that public servants receive doesn’t get stuffed under mattresses; it ripples through their local economies, to the tune of $358.6 billion a year, according to the National Institute on Retirement Security.

According to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, the average beneft payment in 2007 was about $22,000 a year and about a quarter of the people included in that calculation didn’t collect Social Security under individual states’ laws.  Read more (subscription required).