At a time when there is fevered interest in public pension issues, the trustees of the city’s retirement funds are clamping an improper lid of secrecy on their doings.

The names of every retiree who gets a public pension and the amounts they receive are clearly matters of record. Taxpayers have an absolute right to see that data.

Such sunlight, mandatory under law, guarantees that interested citizens can inspect how much money is paid to individual pensioners, be they firefighters who retired on reported disabilities or convicted felons from the City Council.

The Manhattan Institute’s Albany offshoot, the Empire Center, operates a valuable website that lets the public scrutinize pensions by retirees’ names. The three state pension funds provided the data, as did four of the five city pension funds.

The fifth fund, the one covering police, refused, claiming releasing names would jeopardize retired officers’ safety. The argument is ludicrous, as the names and salaries of city cops who currently work are posted online without security fears.

After the Empire Center filed a Freedom of Information suit, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Carol Huff sided with the cops in a boneheaded ruling. Now, the other funds are citing that ruling in shutting off access to information on all retirees even though security for them is not an issue. The inescapable conclusion is that the pension funds just don’t want the public to look.

Wiser courts must reverse this rush to secrecy.

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