I can hear the governor yelling, "I'm still relevant, damn it!"

Governor Deval Patrick is taking another whack at a pension overhaul in Massachusetts with new legislation designed to prevent sweetheart retirement deals and cut the overall cost of the state’s public pension system.

Patrick plans to introduce a bill today that includes roughly a dozen changes to state pension law, including requiring anyone seeking special, enhanced benefits to provide an actuarial analysis of the cost before the request can be approved, according to two state officials briefed on the plan.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, declined to describe the other proposed changes but said that in general, the bill would address loopholes left open after the Legislature approved the governor’s first pension overhaul last year.

While that law eliminated some of the most commonly abused pension benefits, such as getting credit for a year’s worth of public service after working one day, it did not cap the pension benefits employees can receive. Currently, 113 retirees collect more than $183,000 a year, an amount greater than the earnings of 90 percent of Massachusetts households. The 2009 law also didn’t address so-called termination benefits, which provide enhanced pensions to employees with 20 years of service who lose their job through no fault of their own. Only two other states provide such benefits.

Patrick’s new legislation is based on the work of a Special Pension Reform Commission the governor convened last year after a series of Globe reports revealed repeated pension abuses and special deals granted to certain retirees. One such report in October 2008 chronicled a series of state laws granting enhanced pensions to certain individuals by name. Those laws awarded specific retirees 100 percent of their salaries, tax-free for life. Fiscal watchdogs have estimated that similar laws have cost taxpayers as much as $125 million per year.

If the governor’s new legislation passes, bills that benefit specific individuals by name could not become law unless they include a detailed cost analysis from the state retirement agency and from local pension officials in the city or town where the recipient works. In the past, many of those bills have been so vaguely worded that it has been unclear what they are intended to do, much less what they would cost.

UPDATE: More from Beacon Hill Institute, Red Mass Group, Ed Moscovitch, Michael Graham, Holly Robichaud, the Herald and Globe.

SECOND UPDATE: Please be sure to join us Wednesday night for the latest edition of The Notes on Blog Talk Radio! Our guests will be National Review’s Victor Davis Hanson and Time’s Romesh Ratnesar. Plus, more from Scot Lehigh, the Globe and Herald.

THIRD UPDATE: From WBUR, the Herald and the Globe.