(CNSNews.com) - A panel examining ways to save Maryland money is eyeing state employees' health and pension benefits, says an AP report found in the Baltimore Sun.

The state commission's cost-saving recommendations – including one that state employees work much longer to be eligible for benefits -- drew immediate criticism Monday from a labor group.

According to the report, the Public Employees' & Retirees' Benefit Sustainability Commission voted Monday to require 15 years of service, instead of the current five, before state workers are eligible to participate in the retiree health care program.

Those employees would also have to spend 25 years working for the state, instead of 16 years, to receive the maximum retiree health care premium subsidy from the state and work 10 years instead of five to become vested in the state employee pension plan.

Labor leaders criticized the panel's recommendations, calling them "particularly disconcerting" for one of the richest states in the country and predicting that it would harm Maryland's ability to recruit and retain state workers.

See Newspaper Roundup and Read Baltimore Sun/AP report