More than 475 employees of Florida’s state universities have retired and then returned to their jobs, a step that enables them to collect both their salaries and their pensions and that is completely legal, according to the St. Petersburg Times.

For example, Richard L. Meyer, associate dean of the University of South Florida’s College of Business, retired from his $145,314 job in October 2005 and collected a lump sum of $290,237, the newspaper reports. He was back at his post a month later, and now earns $154,162 as well as $57,072 in annual pension payments. The Chronicle reported on a similar payout received in 2006 by the president of Miami Dade College, Eduardo J. Padrón.

The Florida newspaper’s reporting on the retirement loophole, which could benefit 8,000 state employees, comes at an inconvenient time for the state’s public colleges. Another round of budget cuts is looming, and the institutions are capping enrollment and freezing hiring.

However, some college employees pass up the benefit, the newspaper says, including several college chiefs. Florida State University’s president, T.K. Wetherell, forfeited $630,000 when he walked away from money the state had deposited in his retirement account.

The president of St. Petersburg College, Carl M. Kuttler Jr., ceded $527,000. He told the newspaper that he did not allow other administrators on his campus to take advantage of the retirement option, which he called a “scam.” The six employees at the college who returned after retirement are all part-time clerical and custodial workers who make less than $25,000 a year. —Paul Fain