ALBANY — Dean Skelos, the former Senate Majority Leader who was convicted weeks ago of corruption, will retire officially Jan. 2, according to government records. And he’s applying to receive his state pension. Independent think-tank The Empire Center calculates that pension at about $95,000 a year, based on the 32 years Skelos spent in the state Legislature and nine years in government elsewhere. A state law does require lawmakers convicted of work-related felonies to forfeit their pensions, but that applies only to lawmakers elected after that bill was signed into law. A move to include all lawmakers fell apart earlier this year.
© 2015 WRGB
You may also like
EDITORIAL: FOILed by a judge: Manhattan jurist Melissa Crane must speed it up on making police pensions public
Long ago the Empire Center for Public Policy asked the NYPD Pension Fund for the names of retirees and how much each is paid, to add the data to its indispensable database on how New York taxpayer dollars are spent. Read More
Super superintendent pensions soar over $200,000 for 12 Hudson Valley schools chiefs
Overall, 52 educators from the Hudson Valley in 2018 were eligible for pensions of $160,000 or more, according to a report issued by SeeThroughNY, an online project of the Empire Center for Public Policy in Albany. Read More
City workers’ pension funds hinge on Mayor de Blasio’s environmental stand
Tens of thousands of Long Islanders' pension funds are invested in gas and oil holdings. New York City wants to divest about $3.7 billion from them because of climate change. Read More
Conservative group sues pension fund for not releasing info on NYPD retirees
The Empire Center has filed a petition in state Supreme Court that claims the city acted “unlawfully” in failing to provide an accounting of pensions of former NYPD cops. Read More
Put down the shield: Police should turn over pension data to the public
Pensions for government retirees have been public information in New York since forever, but for nearly a decade, the Empire Center for Public Policy has been trying to collect and publish names and dollar figures on its SeeThroughNY.net website — only to be stymied by the pension funds. Read More
As city worker OT surges, so does pressure on pension costs
The city's generous payroll and benefits system continues to draw fire for exorbitant overtime and often unchecked disability pensions. Read More
Retired New York City educators are receiving average annual pensions as high as $88G, report shows
“It’s definitely an outmoded way to fund retirements when you look at how the private sector has moved toward defined contribution retirement plans,” Girardin said. “Every year we remain in the pension business, we’re putting taxpayers who haven’t even been born yet on the hook for paying benefits 50 or 60 years from now.” Read More
Unlike many, New York mostly avoids risky pension gambles
Pension system investments "are all in danger of veering off the road, just at different speeds," the Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon said in October. Read More