Steve Flowers: Inside The Statehouse: The RSA effect

  Alabama may be on the lower end of the financial spectrum when it comes to the per capita income of our population. However, our public employees have one of the most sound retirement programs in the nation. One group of state employees, our judges, have what is probably one of the most lucrative retirement programs in the entire country.

  The benefits accrued by members of our judiciary are nothing less than amazing. The judges can thank the late Supreme Court Chief Justice and U.S. Senator Howell Heflin for spearheading an effort to streamline and update our judicial system in the 1970s. This Judicial Article not only upgraded the court system and judicial compensation, it created unparalleled retirement benefits.