Corrections Department employees qualified for average pensions of nearly $70,000, the highest average benefit for any agency grouping among the 7,990 New York City Employee Retirement System (NYCERS) members collecting their first full year’s worth of pension benefits in 2018, according to data posted today at SeeThroughNY.net, the Empire Center’s transparency website.
The 670 Corrections employees who retired at any point in 2017 were eligible for full-year average maximum benefits of $69,652 in 2018, the latest NYCERS pension records show. The agency with the largest number of new full-year NYCERS pension recipients in 2018 was the Transit Authority, whose 1,688 retirees were eligible for an average maximum of $46,491 last year.
City agencies producing the next largest numbers of new full-year NYCERS retirees in 2018 were, in descending order, the Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC), whose 1,630 new retirees were eligible for an average of $33,353 last year; the Department of Social Services, whose 505 retirees qualified for an average of $28,970; and the Housing Authority, whose 494 retirees qualified for an average of $31,125.
A total of 1,108 city retirees who retired were eligible for pensions of at least $100,000 in calendar year 2018. Topping the list of pensioners was Joseph Fiocca, a former deputy general counsel for the Housing Preservation and Development Department, who was eligible for maximum benefits payable of $434,263 in 2018, according to NYCERS records obtained by the Empire Center under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). Fiocca retired in 2010 with 33 years of service.
Corrections and HHC together accounted for slightly more than half of the 100 highest pensions payable in 2018 to city employees in their first full year of retirement. The 2017 retirees eligible for the five highest pensions were:
The Empire Center, based in Albany, is an independent, not-for-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to promoting policies that can make New York State a better place to live, work and raise a family.
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