Talk about a happy coincidence. Albany’s plan to borrow—instead of cut—its way out of a $9 billion budget hole was Thursday’s front-page news.

Alongside it, appropriately, was a story about the chairwoman of the Erie County Legislature, who is also a soon-to- retire Buffalo cop. Barbara Miller-Williams has been piling on the overtime in order to pad her taxpayer-funded pension. The lifetime annual benefit is based on the final three years of police pay.

Talk about cause and effect.

Miller-Williams logged more than $51,000 worth of OT last year, The Buffalo News’ Jim Heaney reported. It pumps up her pension—which she starts collecting upon retirement in a few weeks —to about $44,000. That is $44,000 a year, untaxed by Albany, for the rest of her life—and she is only 53. And you wonder why the state is going broke.

Sweet public pensions are one of a bushel of reasons why our state is $9 billion in the hole. And no matter what gimmick legislators use to dodge the budget train, I doubt that anything will change.

Miller-Williams is not doing anything that you or I would not do in her boots. Thousands of cops, firefighters, teachers and other public workers pump up their pensions by piling on the preretirement OT. The deeper problem is not the way they “game” the system. The problem is the people making the rules.

Public employee unions are just one of a glut of “special interests” that the governor and the State Legislature cater to in return for campaign dollars. We pay, case in point, the highest public health (Medicaid) bill in the nation not because patients here get better care, but because providers get their pockets lined. This is the way it goes, all the way down the line.

Unless you are a state worker or otherwise are part of the system, you do not share in the reward—you just get the bill.

Anybody reading this who is not reaching for the bottle is wondering what we can do about it. I wish I had better news.

I hate writing about getting abused without telling folks how to fight back. But I think Albany is beyond the power of citizens—whether they are part of a Tea Party or sitting at the kitchen table —to change it. Legislators have rigged the system to armor-plate themselves against voter rage. The folks who cause the problem are, ironically, among the few people in the state with job security.

Facing a $9 billion budget hole, the governor’s office this week did not demand cuts to Medicaid, or merging overlapping agencies, or worker layoffs or other cost-hacking changes. Instead, it encouraged legislators to borrow the money.

Urging legislators to borrow, noted E. J. McMahon of the fiscally prudent Empire Center, “is like bringing a giftwrapped bottle of Johnnie Walker Red to a recovering alcoholic.”

McMahon told me that even some hard-core Albany Democrats are so disgusted that they are “looking at the price of property in South Carolina.”

There is another way out, besides getting out: buying in. Either find a job that comes with a state pension or hook up with someone who does.

If things get much worse, I envision a shift in personal ads for relationship-seeking singles. Forget about looking for somebody who enjoys walks on the beach or who loves dogs. Instead: Seeking potential soul mate with 30 years of service in the state pension system, preferably Tier 1 or 2, with whom to share a comfortable retirement. Serious replies only.

If Barbara Miller-Williams were single, she would have plenty of suitors. Aside from her personal charms, she comes with the added bonus of a taxpayer- funded pension. And that, in this state, is the biggest attraction of all.