If you’re wondering how much money Joe Bruno will get in retirement as opposed to how much he would have gotten if he had served out his term in the state Senate, I am here to tell you.

He will receive a pension of approximately $95,000 a year – the comptroller’s office hasn’t done the precise calculation – whereas if he had served out his term he would have been paid at the annual rate of only $79,500. Furthermore, the pension is free of state taxes (thanks to the foresight of legislators like Bruno himself), whereas the salary would be subject to the standard state rate of 6.85 percent. So it’s a double win for him to step down early, once he made the decision to retire.

Why is the pension higher than his salary? Well, the salary is based on his total state pay, including the $41,000 bonus he got as Senate majority leader. But 75 percent of that bonus was paid to him to him in a lump sum in the first paycheck of the new fiscal year, in April, the balance to be paid at the conclusion of the fiscal year, next March.

So he would have been paid only pro rated portions of his base salary for the rest of 2008, and those are smaller than his pension payments will be.

Also bolstering his pension is credit for two years of public employment beyond the 41.73 years that he officially logged with the retirement system. That’s because the Legislature, with Bruno’s help, passed a measure a few years ago known as Article 19 that magically gives two extra years credit to anyone (like him) who was in the system before July 27, 1976. Just a freebee, that’s all, to cheer old-time members of the public-employee unions and sweeten the pot for old-time legislators too. A little gift from us to them, at their initiative.